NicoleBerger's photostream

Currently, a senior at Northern Kentucky University I am pursing a Bachelor’s Degree with an emphasis in photography. My work is very psychologically driven and I find that what I do not understand is what I quickly fall in love with. I feel as though each series is a narrative with a very pointed idea, though my characters are open to interpretation from anyone viewing the images I create. My goal is to evoke an emotion and to lead a viewer through a story in which they are the writer I merely supply the set.

Stemming from a childhood of imaginary friends and a strong indulgence in people watching, my work becomes a form of fact from my personal fiction. Catching a daydream, a nightmare, a second thought, what if, and a maybe are things that resolve in a person’s mind as holding onto what would otherwise slip through their fingers.

My documentary work, though more poignant than my narrative pieces, I feel, expresses something that most do not wish to communicate. These photographs bring a light to what would remain darkened without them. It was in working on this project, I was able to help people understand that death is always a constant, while living is only a variable. Dying is not an option, whereas living is an opportunity we sometimes neglect to take.

At the age of five, my mother handed me a broken camera and told me to go play. Now, after four years of pursing photography passionately, I have had six published photographs including two into The Library of Congress (2011), have exhibited in three different exhibitions including a group show at The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center (2010), and I have been working closely with the St. Elizabeth Hospital and the St. Elizabeth Hospice Center providing images for their various offices, publications, and commercial work.

My life inspires my work, from top to bottom, left to right, inside and out – there is a space between dream and awake, living and death that takes everything intangible and allows us to hold on for just one second. It is that second I’m always driving to catch.