Bernice Afriyie | Arts Editor
Featured image: York student and photographer Hagley uses his photographs to encourage meaningful connections with people. | Courtesy of Justin Miles Hagley
Impatiently waiting for a YouTube video to play, flipping through the Olympics on a commercial break or leafing through a magazine, you’ve probably stumbled upon one of those ads featuring highly stylized images captioned, “shot on an iPhone.” It may seem odd to have a cellphone likened to the quality of digital cameras, or even unlikely that such ads were in fact shot an iPhone, but they nonetheless show how anything can be used for art.
Justin Miles Hagley knows this from personal experience. A lover of art and philosophy, he remembers when he first picked up his Samsung Galaxy smartphone in the summer of grade nine or 10 and constantly took photos of things that caught his eye. We won’t go into the semantics or pros and cons between Apple and Android, like why one would need wireless earphones or an auxiliary-less phone, because they both serve the same artistic end.
For Hagley, it was having access to photography that mattered. “The photos looked pretty good, in my opinion,” remembers Haley. “So I decided to upgrade to a DSLR a few years later and really just started sharing my work in the last few months.”
Despite the upgrade, Hagley’s views on photography aren’t material based. “To me, photography is the expression of a single individual’s style or aesthetic. You can do so much through photography, whether that be capturing a once-in-a-lifetime moment or expressing a certain sentiment, message or social statement.
“For me, I just love to create unique visuals,” continues Hagley. “I remember at one point I said my goal was for my Instagram to have the aesthetic of a Tumblr page or [be a] part of a Frank Ocean music video. As I progress with my photography more and more, I want to influence the way people look at art and make them think about certain things that they may not have really given thought to previously.”
The expectation of a critical eye extends to how Hagley perceives his work. Like many artists, Hagley is a perfectionist. “I can take a shot that some call amazing but I might not want to share that because of something that bothers me about it, whether it be a technical issue or a visual issue. I would say that is my biggest challenge right now as a growing artist.”
Even with his ethos and technical concerns, at the heart of Hagley’s work is an interest in making meaningful connections with people through minimalistic means. “Not everyone is a poet, or a writer or anything like that. But most people can appreciate visuals or what they see in front of them. They might not even interpret the message behind the photo, but that visual is what catches the eye and might open the mind.”
Hagley creates a captivating atmosphere within his photographs through high-contrast lighting or casual models, inviting gazers to look a little closer and perhaps, in the process, takes them far away.
In a sense, photography then becomes a drug that provides a high, but without the crashes or space-outs. “It’s essentially a way to take your mind off the stress and rapid pace of things in this highly industrialized world. Photography can take you far away from the struggles of today, if that’s what you need it to do.”
Lately, Hagley has been dabbling in music production and DJ work and has some shoots lined up with brands. He openly welcomes collaboration with other artists and models. For readers interested in photography, Hagley shares the words of a close friend and photographer: just keep shooting.
