Sometimes you see an image, and you stop, take a second look. Then, even with that second look, you don’t quite trust what you’ve seen. The haunting images created by Jay Parr, this year’s winner in photography for the student art show, certainly stick with you … perhaps even into your dreams.

Parr has been interested in photography for about six years now. He says the pieces in the show “are typical of [his] voice,” and that they are examples of the direction that he is currently working towards. The pieces in the show were a few of his personal favorites. They are not meant to be a series, but are somewhat related.

Parr does not quite know how to summarize his work: “I don’t try to describe it – I just do it.” He has heard several people comment that the images are “scary”, but Parr says, “I think it’s kind of funny… well maybe it is kind of scary… it’s vaguely exploring the dark places within the mind.”

One of the requirements to enter pieces in the show is that the work must have been done within the last year. Parr says that these photos are all very new and part of his current project. He works mainly in black and white, shooting with an old Hasselblad and standard Ilford HP5 film. Like most artistic black-and-white photographers, Parr does his own developing and dark room work.

Most of the strange special effects are done with the camera during shoots and not through printing, as it may seem. Parr uses “unconventional” methods of lighting, such as a flashlight as the only light source within total darkness, combined with long exposures, to achieve odd results.

“I break a lot of ‘rules’ and sometimes my exposures are guess-work,” Parr said. He also shoots a good deal of film to try to get the results he wants. For each image in the show, he shot seven or eight rolls of film. Parr says he shoots with a loose plan. “The rest of it is somewhere between play and gambling,” he said.

Parr has lately been using himself as a model, although he has had friends’ assistance in the past. He feels that it’s “kind of liberating” to self-model. With only himself in front of the lens, he does not worry, because “no one else’s ego is at stake.”

Parr is a very busy man on campus, doing technical work for student activities (events and rentals). He is a senior with an English major and a concentration in photography.

Come support the artistic talent at Guilford displayed at the Student Art Exhibition. Pieces include all different forms of art media and are displayed in Founders’ Passion Pit (Commons) and Gallery.