Hello everyone. I am Melissa Sunday Jackson and I am attending the Art Institute of Pittsburg online here in Reno Nevada in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree in photography. I received my first camera when I was about 8 years old in 1988. It was a tiny pink 12 shot Micro 110 with a flimsy plastic square that flipped up to act like a viewfinder. I’m sure someone bought this for me after getting tiered of me asking to use the big cameras. From then on, I can’t remember not having some
kind of camera at hand.

A few years later, I instigated my first “photo shoot” with my dad’s girlfriend as the photographer and me as the model, dressing up in different outfits and taking pictures all over the house. I think about that day once in a while when I’m working in my studio and remember how much fun it was. Whenever I’m preparing for a shoot, even when I’m shaking with nervousness, at the core of it all, I’m still that little girl, just having fun.

In 2013 I worked for a few retail portrait shops. I worked for CPI, the company that ran the Walmart and Sears studio and has since gone out of business, and I worked for Lifetouch through the JC Penny’s portrait studio. I was already attending classes and quickly discovered that I was the only one with a photography education of any magnitude among my coworkers. The experience of working in these three studios gave me a vastly different prospective on photography, and not all of it was positive. When I quit after a year and a half, I took time off school and seriously considered whether or not I wanted to pursue this line of work. I can say that working there “motivated” me, but really it motivated me to push myself far past the uninspired “puppy mill” type of photography that exists there. It also taught me a great deal about retail photography.

Ideally, in 10 years time, I’d like to be working as a celebrity portrait photographer, with musician or photographing on movie sets. Annie Leibovitz is a huge inspiration in this field. I just want to be her when I grow up. In 20 years time, I’d like to have earned enough of a reputation as an amazing photographer that I have a constant stream of interested clients. I would like to have visited/worked in at least 10 different countries, paid off all my loans and be saving for my retirement.

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