Photo by Jonathan Martin

Gavin Jackson

Being long enough from home, but still close (five hours by car, one by plane) is the answer I give to those who ask why I decided Kent State, all the way from Silver Spring, Maryland. The real answer is I have no idea why. Kent State found me, I think, and with it I found a world of opportunity and friendship I could never have expected.

Since my first semester at Kent I have been involved in student media—in every form of media: print, broadcast and a few words spoken on the radio. My primary/favorite medium being the first, print, the main outlet for what I do, take photographs.

Understandably times are changing and I have come to embrace the changes that come with them. At first resisting, then ridiculing, now finally accepting

the many platforms that our work can now be seen on. Embracing this/these new form(s) has reinforced my trust in the words, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”

Through photos, I enjoy showing others what they may have missed or otherwise would never have known. The photograph has the power to show so much and it is the photographer, who has the responsibility to capture it and show it.

I plan to graduate sometime in 2008, and do what I love full-time.

I keep a modest photo blog and upload when I can: actiongphoto.blogspot.com

(My portrait is taken with slide film that was cross-processed in C-41 chemistry, done out of boredom while manning the printers at Ritz Camera last year ‘05)