We all know Billy McCullough, the upbeat senior that does nothing else but smile. What some people don’t know, though, is that there is much more to him than the jovial kid we all know and love. Billy began doing photography in the fifth grade, when he got his first camera from his grandfather, and he has loved it ever since. As the only student in Ms. Cantor’s Advanced Photography Class, Billy has honed his art through his Malvern experience. His dedication to the field of photography is inspiring, and he is sure to continue with it as his life goes on. I conducted an interview with Billy to uncover some deeper information about Billy’s love and passion for photography.
JC: What do you love about photography?
BM: Everything. There is nothing I don’t like about it. I like how you have to go out to places and explore and find new things.
JC: What is your inspiration for the pictures you take?
BM: My brain and the crazy way I think. I basically get my brain to go in many different directions. Whatever I’m thinking, I do it.
JC: How does photography speak to you?
BM: I just like creating things, and I express what I’m thinking in it. It gives me the ability to express my own thinking.
JC: Do you think that photography is an outlet for emotion?
BM: Yes. If I’m upset I can just go out and walk and take pictures of stuff. Emotion doesn’t influence my photography. If I’m angry, that doesn’t mean I would take angry pictures, it’s just something I can do if I’m angry or upset or happy, but what my emotions are doesn’t come out in my pictures. I just take pictures of whatever I’m thinking.
JC: What do you say to the people that think photography is nothing more than just a click of a button?
BM: It depends on what photography you do. The people who just take random pictures might be able to make them look okay, but in order to get an awesome picture, you might have to plan it out, or it might just be a spur of the second thing. But you have to know certain techniques and you have to have an eye for it. I learned the techniques after I had already developed an eye for it. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew it looked good because I just figured out how to do it on my own. I basically had the photographic instinct before I actually learned what I was doing.
Billy is headed to Drexel University in Fall 2014.
