Julia Staples

Julia hoped to escape her hometown by studying in a large city. She decided on Parsons School of Design because of its emphasis on the practical aspects of making a living as an artist. She began her photography studies and soon gained the confidence to learn anything on her own. In order to help finance her education, Julia sought part-time work, and in her sophomore through senior years, worked for a United Nations-based newspaper shooting and editing photographs of world summits as they occurred in New York, Europe, Central America, and Africa. She loved the work, finding that photography was indeed bringing her into contact with new places and people.

Digital imaging leads to artistic recognition

Julia had spent most of her time in college building a fine arts portfolio filled with landscape images. She had focused on shooting naturally occurring triangular shapes in nature. One night she realized that the images would be complete if they were digitally manipulated but looked totally natural. Julia focused on making her landscapes perfect to the eye, perfectly symmetrical through manipulated reflection of some feature of the image. She decided to submit her digital images to the 2002 Adobe Design Achievement Awards when she was a senior, and won first place honors (link to winners gallery). The event, held in the Guggenheim Museum, helped launch Julia's artistic career. It was there that she met the owner of a Los Angeles gallery, who admired her work and invited her to submit images for her first gallery show.

Pursuing a dream

After winning first place in the Adobe Design Achievement Awards, Julia had the confidence to pursue a dream. She had always been fascinated with Icelandic sagas and decided to try retelling them through photographs. Having met two former Fulbright scholars who had shot photographs in foreign locations, she decided to apply to become one herself. She worked day and night on her proposal in the three months following graduation, and gained the support of her school's Fulbright board.

While her proposal was under review for many months, she organized her portfolio and secured a position as full-time photographer for a manufacturer of specially decorated gourmet theme cookies. Julia worked every day to shoot innovative images that would express the uniqueness of the cookies for the firm's new catalog. Eight months later she learned that she was selected as one of four Fulbright scholars to go to Iceland. She joined a creative writer, a linguist, and an environmental educator, each working on different projects, all of which were highly ambitious for a sojourn of just ten months. She was thrilled that photography was paving the way to a new location she had long dreamed about.

Julia went to Iceland with great optimism and enthusiasm. She began to shoot photographs, not just of mythical settings, but also of architecture and of landscapes that would appear to be perfectly symmetrical when she had completed her photo manipulation. She found that her proposal was too ambitious given the lack of production equipment and the short time allotted. Now in her own studio, Julia continues to work on her Icelandic photo sagas.

Starting a commercial practice

To support her artistic endeavors, Julia is also at work developing a commercial photography practice in her birthplace, Philadelphia. Influenced by her architect forbears, Julia is giving the practice an architectural focus. She is building a specialized portfolio, networking with architects and planning a mailing to members of the local architecture professional association. She still finds that having won an Adobe Design Achievement Award opens doors for her. One of her current customers hired her because she knew about the competition and was very impressed.

Advise for students

Julia advises students to "learn how to learn" while they are in school and then to keep learning. She thinks too many art students focus only on learning techniques for creating aesthetic objects. She recommends instead that work at learning about what they find important so they can also apply it to their art. She counsels "Create work you love to do. You need to have something to say, and then use your ability to make beautiful or striking objects to express what's important. Don't worry about becoming famous. That comes with time, and lots of work and learning."