Nicole Lesser grew up in Los Angeles CA. She always wanted to go to NYC, so she entered the photography program at Parsons Design of School in 2006. She worked for various art photographers in LA and NY, including Alex Prager (based in LA), and continues to work with Ryan McGinley (based in NY). She currently lives in Brooklyn, and while accumulating her BFA, is working on personal projects including making photo books to be distributed, and collaborating with other artists.

My artwork comes from my relationships with people. The people I have come to know well are the ones that allow my photographs to happen, and make them special. These people, the way we feel about each other, the situations we are involved in, and the evolution of each day and situation are the makeup of my pictures. It is through them, experiences we share, how comfortable they feel around me, what they allow me to see, and the way they look at me that makes the pictures special and unique to me. These pictures are a representation of how them and I are dealing with ourselves entering the world independently. I am at the age where I want to find out who I want to be, and I see my companions going through the same thing. These photographs are my personal sentiments, intimate portraits and daily snapshots of my life and those I am intrigued by.

FJORD: How do you feel the Internet has affected the way you work?

NICOLE: It has not affected the way I work, meaning the way I make pictures. I am not a big internet person, this is one of the first times I have submitted my work to an online site. I do prefer to show my work printed rather than on a computer. However, I have begun to use the website flickr as a testing method, to see which photographs are more popular, but I don't think its really that great, because it's usually just the nudie pics that get the most views.

F: Have you changed your working method based on the way the Internet has changed how photography functions?

N: I scan all my negatives now, to use flickr and put them on my website, and sometimes to print them from a computer printer. I am beginning to warm up to digital prints rather than darkroom prints.

F: How do you gain inspiration for your work? Where do you look for ideas?

N: Everywhere. Walking down the street, films, other artists, textiles, paintings, a lot of moments of natural sunlight, literally everything.

F: What are some of your favorite websites?

N: I don't have many, I don't surf the interenet much. When I do check sites, its sometimes, tinyvices.com, my friends' blogs (danalaurengoldstein.blogspot.com), obviously myspace and facebook, that's pretty much it, unless someone recommends one. I dislike youtube.

F: Do you have any suggestion to help out new and emerging photographers gain exposure?

N: I am still learning how to do that. I think definitely go to shows, see who is big in the art world. Now I'm learning it is about sending stuff to online sites. Email artists you like, because they may have something really interesting and fulfilling to say.

F: How did you first start to promote yourself and your work?

N: I made my website freshman year, and try to constantly update it. I put pictures on flickr and I have been in the process of making a book/zine of my pictures from the past five months. I'm always trying to show my pictures to whoever I think would be interested in them.

F: Where do you see your work going in the next year and the future in general?

N: It is definitely evolving, it is getting much more personal to me as I begin to realize what I think is special about my photographs. That is the most important thing to me, and also the hardest to explain, when someone asks me what my art is about, or writing an artists statement. Learning how, why, and what you make your photographs about is crucial, because if they have meaning to you, they will immediately have more impact. I don't know exactly where my pictures are headed at the moment, I can't say until it happens.