Featured image by Molly Strohl
“I was in an elevator at Bergen and this guy asked me, ‘Aren’t you on the cover of the catalog?’” said Molly Strohl, a fourth year photography major from Alabama. She didn’t just model for the photograph “Hello Operator” featured in the admission catalog – she took it herself.
Molly Strohl as photographed by Kelia MacCluskey.
Although Strohl calls Alabama home, she has lived “a little bit of everywhere.” She was born in Minnesota but moved to Connecticut when she was five years old. When she turned 15, her family moved to Alabama.
It was during the move from Connecticut to Alabama that Strohl picked up a camera. “I didn’t really have any friends [at that time],” she explained. “So I just bought a camera and started messing around with it and thought, ‘Oh I like this!’”
Strohl started posting her photographs on Flickr, a popular online community for photographers. It was there that she made friends. In 2011, during Strohl’s freshman year at SCAD, some of them wanted to meet in person and arranged a gathering at Rhodes Hall in Atlanta.
“We were allowed to have free rein all over the house and take photos wherever,” said Strohl. “So I set up my tripod and one of my friends had this really old phone as a prop.” Like she did with her first camera, Strohl started to “mess around” with the props and the location.“I didn’t really have any set story for the photo and then [when] I started taking the photo, I started seeing something.”
Strohl “didn’t do anything” to get her work featured as the cover for the catalog. The only thing she did was submit “Hello Operator” to the 2011 Silver and Ink show, the photography department’s annual juried exhibition featuring student work. “When you do that, you sign a contract saying that SCAD gets to use the photo for anything they want,” she explained.
“I guess they don’t have to tell you about it,” said Strohl, who added that she didn’t even get an e-mail telling her that her work was on the cover. “I just had friends who said, ‘Hey! You’re on the catalog!’”
Being featured in the catalog is nothing new for Strohl. Last year, the photo was published inside the catalog.“And now it’s on the cover and on the website. It’s so cool; it’s everywhere right now.”
This piece is part of Strohl’s “Jettison” series.
She admits that she doesn’t have this year’s catalog. “I’m going to Bradley Hall this week or next and grab a copy. I’ll probably get one for my parents!”
She credits one of her teachers, Professor Jaclyn Cori Norman, for propelling her work to the next level. “She’s great; I love her. I don’t think she understands how much she pushed me in her Black-and-white class,” said Strohl.
“After that, my work just changed completely. It’s so different now than it was before. She makes me think more critically about my work and I think that was my big turning point. She’s tough but that’s what I love about her.”
Stohl says she doesn’t know how to describe her style. “I just had a portfolio review for Lisa Robinson and she told me that I look at people, places and things and what they’re made up of physically. Like elements, atoms, the little things … what comprises something. So I think that carries through my work,” she said, citing her Star Dust and Land series as examples.
As of now, Stohl doesn’t look at other photographers’ work. “It gets my mind muddy,” she said. “Right now I’m just paying attention to my friends and what they’re doing and that’s kind of influencing me right now. I don’t want to compare my work to someone who’s been doing it for 30 years. They’re masters. It makes me feel bad. If I’m looking at what someone my age is going through and their thoughts and feelings, I feel like I can relate more to that.”
