Letters From Armour Web

Jessie

1. Background:

Why hello, young, beautiful souls. The name is Jessie. Jessie Claire Goodwin. I’m humbled and honored to present myself to you as the Director of Armour Online. What does this mean? The boring answer, taken straight from my LinkedIn profile, is that I am the director of web editorial production, web publishing, website creation and maintenance, web marketing, partnerships, archive management… yawn. To keep it interesting and so you don’t close off this article, my job is to help all of you make our online presence as robust and “Armour” as possible. I help guide our lovely members in the pre and post production stages of online editorials, I help find new, cool, stuff to take photos of, fawn over, write about— you name it. Essentially, if you’ve got an idea for Armour Online (website structure, web editorial, video project), give me a holler and we’ll make your vision happen. Oh, also, I’m a sophomore, I’m from one of the least interesting states in this country (Connecticut), and I’m majoring in Film and Media Studies: Production Concentration with a double minor in Philosophy and Photography— useful stuff! Who wants to hire me? Just kidding.

3. Fun Fact / Latest Interest:

Do questions like this make anyone else anxious? I have hand tattoos. So fun. I love horses and used to dabble in professional jumping competitions and horse sales (I’m in college now because some people thought jumping animals over sticks wasn’t a sustainable career option. I have absolutely no clue where they conjured that up). I love any shoe option that has a fat platform glued onto the bottom of it. I am a Sagittarius, and I think I have a moon in Aquarius and my Cancer is rising. Whatever that means. Does this combination mean that I have a horrible personality? Somebody read me.

3. Favorite photographer(s):

Rinko. Kawauchi. I need not say more. Look at these photos.

4. Your own work:

I take pictures for school but I also do it for fun. Here’s a combination of the two:

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Bri

1. Background:

Hi everyone! This is Bri, I’m the social mom and will be helping out with web this semester for Armour which I am SO excited about. My job is to curate a lovely looking Instagram page, answer all your burning questions in our dms, and find opportunities for us to collaborate on social media. Beyond that, I like all things food. If you happen to pass by me on my phone or computer I almost guarantee I’ll be scrolling through photos on Bon Appetit or watching the latest episode of Top Chef. I’m from the rolling hills of Moraga, a little town in the East Bay of the Bay Area. Additionally, I am a sophomore majoring in Ancient Studies, a branch off of classics and I personally love getting into arguments about how I think Medea is a beast, and I’m minoring in marketing. Yay Armour!

2. Fun Fact / Latest Interest:

Thrillers have been my latest interest, my favorite books I read over the summer were The Silent Patient and The Maidens–sort of a combination of my favorite things Greek cults and horror, lol. I also really liked the T.V. series Andor, I watched it over the break #StellanSkarsgardSlay.

3. Favorite photographer(s):

My favorite photographers are Annie Leibovitz (I love her early work), Vivian Maier and Dorothea Lange. I remember watching a documentary on Leibovitz in my high school photo class. She quoted something about how photographs shouldn’t just say a word but tell a sentence—sort of how photos have the power to capture in a single still moment an entire story. I think that’s relevant in her work with John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Whoopi Goldberg—I especially love her photo of Whoopi emerging from a bathtub of milk. Vivian Maier is a super dope nanny who, I think, has some of the most amazing street photography. Dorothea Lange took images during the Great Depression, and I think her sense of composition is really beautiful. Her ability to capture loss and grief in that age is quite extraordinary. One of my favorite pieces of her photo collection is her images of mended stockings–women were unable to afford a new pair of stockings so they had to piece together their old, ripped ones.

4. Your own work:

Here is some of my own work. The white flowers in milk I made in my sink at home with a bunch of lamps all around me, it’s loosely inspired by Leibovitz’s Whoopi Goldberg shoot. I’m into macro-photography, I like botanical gardens and finding fun water droplets and insects. The portrait was from a project on taking images that represented who you were. I took photos at my favorite Chinese restaurant in my hometown; I think it’s kind of funny because they know my favorite dishes by heart and recognize my voice on the phone when I order food. It was the first time I went into the back of the kitchen. My favorite photo is of this female chef who posed in front of me with her lacquered duck. I thought it was touching because she wanted to be seen and, although many who step into that restaurant won’t be able to meet her, through my lens I felt I could honor her in a small way.

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Erin

1. Background:

Hi lovely Armourites, random people, and everyone in-between! I’m Erin, Armour’s director of digital publishing. Essentially, I take all of Armour’s cool web content and post it to Armour’s website. Aside from that, I also am a photographer for Armour and have had the privilege of working on some fun shoots like 20^th Century Archeologist and 10 Hours Left in Life. I am originally from the California Bay Area, like right on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. This is my second year at WashU and I’m studying Communication Design and minoring in HCI and art history (as of yesterday lol) .

2. Fun Fact / Latest Interest:

Recently, I have been attempting to learn how to 3D model. So far, I’ve been able to create very simple geometries, so pretty cool stuff. I also have been really into collaging random things.

3. Favorite photographer(s):

I have a couple favorite photographers. The first is Hiroshi Sugimoto. His photos are so calm and clean, and I really like his experimentation with long exposure images. The second is David Hockney. He makes super cool joiners that break dimensions of time in space. Next is Gregory Crewdson who creates staged images that are really detailed and create a dream-like atmosphere. Lastly, I enjoy the street photography of Stephen Shore and Todd Hido.