Ladies you have to meet Cat Kneip. I first met her last year and was completely blown away by her talent for photography. Check out our interview and her work and you will be too!
Name: Cat Kneip
Major: Electronic Media (CCM), Minor: Organizational Leadership
Year: Second Year
Campus involvement: I work and do a lot of personal projects so my campus involvement isn’t that outstanding. Currently I am a social media chair for the newly found club: The Cinematic Arts Collaborative (CAC for short) which aims at bringing together creative people interested in everything from screen writing to directing to shooting and editing. I am also a member of UC Alliance.
Fun fact: I have a serious obsession with the Women’s National Soccer Team and have a giant American flag with all of their names on it hanging in my dorm room.
Her Campus Cincinnati: How did you get started with photography?
Cat Kneip: When I was in my high school photography class, our teacher made us start out with film cameras and develop our own negatives and produce them in the dark room. I think this really made me understand how a camera actually works because I didn’t see the final results until I saw the negatives. I think now that a lot of people’s first camera is probably a digital one, less and less people appreciate the camera itself. I learned the majority of what I know about Photoshop on my own. The summer going into my senior year in high school, I spent a lot of time on YouTube learning everything I could about Photoshop. That was definitely a self-taught area of my work.
HCC: Where do you find inspiration?
CK: This is always the hardest question to explain. I know it sounds strange but ideas usually just pop into my head. Sometimes I act on them right away, or sometimes a mull over them for months or a year until I have the opportunity to bring them to life. Sometimes they sit in my head for so long I forget how I thought of them. Something more tangible though is the inspiration I get from good music. I’ll be listening to a really great song that has a lot of emotion or a very fast passed and energetic beat and images will just start popping up in my head. I’m also very inspired by other artists. My Instagram feed is actually only about 20% friends and the rest are art blogs or artist’s pages.
HCC: Have you won any awards?
CK: Yes. The highest award I’ve received so far is a Scholastic’s National Silver Medal for my portfolio of a series of abstract pictures I did. The summer going into my first year of college I was invited to New York City to receive my award and be honored on Carnegie Hall stage with other amazing artists from across the United States. It was definitely a mind-blowing experience standing on Carnegie Hall stage and seeing people clap for you. That award really motivated to keep doing what I love, and doing it with a lot of hard work and passion
HCC: Tell us about your underwater photo shoot you did over the summer.
CK: I had been mauling over the thought of an underwater photo shoot for about three years so I decided this past summer was the time to finally do it. Deciding on a theme for the shoot was hard. On one side I wanted to do something very fashionable and colorful like a usually did, but on the other side I had this darker idea of using the water metaphorically to depict people who felt depressed and “under pressure.” This was by far the biggest photography project I had ever gone through with. I shot over two months instead of all in one weekend like a lot of my previous projects. Such a large photo shoot taught me how to plan and problem solve on a whole new level. I ran into a lot of problems because I was trying to pull off this professional level photo shoot with no real professional equipment except for my camera. My camera isn’t waterproof so I bought the cheapest housing I could find. My background was a bed sheet and two-shower curtains safety pinned together and weighed down by Ziploc bags filled with coins. You can’t tell from the pictures though, and I think that’s the amazing part and disproves a common misconception about photography. Yes, it would have been extremely easier if we had professional equipment, but you can still take some pretty awesome photos if you just work hard enough and are passionate about what you’re doing. Expensive equipment doesn’t really do you any good if you don’t have a great idea in the first place. Since it was over such a long period of time, I learned more about how an idea can develop and modify itself. I think it turned out very well. I took so many pictures, about 4,000, for this shoot that I did a mini project of putting all of them in a high speed “flip” video, which is up on my YouTube channel.
HCC: What is your favorite picture you’ve taken?
CK: Oh man. I feel like I look through all of my pictures and say “That one is my favorite” about twenty times. There was one picture though that, once I took it, we ended the photo shoot right there because it was such a great shot that I felt satisfied, which never ever happens. It’s a picture of my oldest friend Megan in a baby pool filled with water and flower petals. My other friend, Maria threw a whole bucket of extra flower petals on her and I took the picture at such a great moment. I also think it’s one of my favorite pictures because of the amount of work that went into getting that one picture. My friend and I spent a solid 22 hours straight picking petals off crab apples trees around my neighbor hood, and then picking all the stems and leaves out. My parents were out of town so my kitchen was literally full of all their Tupperware filled with flower petals. We also had a garden hose running from my basement to the upstairs deck so Megan could have semi-warm water to sit it for three hours. You put in all that work for one picture, and that picture emotionally becomes your favorite. It’s not necessarily my best shot ever, but it tuned out beautifully and I know that I worked my butt off to get it.
HCC: Where do you hope to go with photography in the future?
CK: My dream goal would be to shoot for the cover of Vogue just once. I’ve wanted to do that since I was little and I’m pretty sure my life would be complete if I had that opportunity. In the more near future, I’m currently working on taking my photography skills and moving more into film. I think I could direct and/or shoot some very artistic films in the future. I’ve always been very influenced and inspired by great films that are shot so well and have relatable or eye-opening themes, and I want to be able to use my creative skills to be able to create something just as influential.
Visit her website: www.catkneip.com and instagram: cat_kneip for more of Cat’s amazing photography.