Gina Monroe. Fourth generation namesake: Great-Great-Uncle Monroe, Grandmother Shirley Monroe, Aunt Kathryn Monroe and me. Perpetuating a family legacy of short-statured, singing, jocular witchy women. I mean "witchy" in the naturally creative, down-to-earth, forge-your-own-path sense: sort of inspirational and mystical and communal, like Stevie Nicks twirling in her skirts and shawls onstage. Painters, screenprinters, teachers, musicians; gardeners, seamstresses, culinary artists; sharp-shooters, beekeepers, jewelry-makers and basket-weavers. Sisters, aunts, and mothers.
Born and raised in the quasi-urban Highlands neighborhood of Louisville, KY. Older brother began taking photo classes and built a darkroom in our basement when I was in middle school. Must have felt compelled to follow his example. Began taking black & white film photography and darkroom classes in seventh grade and continued through high school. Moved alone to Chicago in 2004 to attend university and was kept company by my camera, with which I also began documenting the development of many influential friendships and "formative big city experiences."
Put my interest to practical use photographing stories for the university newspaper. During return visits to Louisville, began traveling with my Dad to photograph stories for his magazine articles. Upon relocating to Louisville in 2010, began to study commercial photography and advertising design at community college, learning the intricacies of studio lighting, model and product photography. The larger-than-life quality of studio photography and the challenge of creating a lighting solution for any subject continues to fascinate and gratify me.
My own mechanism of understanding and "communing" with the world has come through creating photographic images, whether to serve someone's specific practical need or just to appreciate, emphasize or amplify the visual world we live in. What I'm all about, when you get back to basics, is carving my own creative niche in our witchy family tree, rendering a complicated 3-D world in two more manageable dimensions, or making real life seem a little more than real.