JONATHAN CHERRY: What got you started with photography?

LISA WISEMAN: Photography is like breathing for me! I’ve done every kind of art under the sun and when my middle school put me in a photography class at age 12; I was hooked. My first teacher, Mark Wachter, took extra care to nurture the small group of us who were really excited about shooting, even creating for us a special extra photography class that didnt really exist at our school. Those first classes were not about executing assignments so I learned how wonderful and freeing shooting can be.

JC: Any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

LW: Oh yes! Some in particular I’ve love recently are Dusdin Condren, Rus Anson and Shen Wei.

JC: What’s your current project all about?

LW: My current project is The 30Love. It just went live yesterday and so far it’s shaping up well! 

In short, I created The 30Love to mark my 30th birthday. It is a worldwide charitable photography project benefiting GLIDE, a charity serving the poor and homeless in San Francisco whose core believe is that unconditional love breaks the cycles of poverty and marginalization. My goal is to raise $30,000 in 30 days by engaging participants with technology and photography and by asking them to think about what love means to them at age 30. We’ve built a beautiful interactive photography constellation as the vehicle by which viewers engage with The 30Love participants.

In addition, I photographed a series of portraits of GLIDE staff, clients and founders/executives to accompany The 30Love which you can see here. I have two planned upcoming exhibits of The 30Love photography series in San Francisco for later this year.

JC: Where are you currently living and how is it shaping you?

LW: I was born and raised in the Bay Area and I live in San Francisco. I’m quite lucky to still live near friends and family in a place this beautiful. Plus, the light in San Francisco is really something else!

JC: One piece of advice to recent photography graduates?

LW: Shoot all the time! Give yourself a rough schedule and stick to it: try something like “I’ll do one personal shoot and prepare images for critique with friends every 2 weeks” That gives you ongoing work to look at, sift through, show to people, keep or discard. You can never be emotionally attached to your work. Also, thinking of yourself as a business person and an artist is the best way I know of to balance creativity and necessary logistics of running a small business.

JC: Any big plans for 2012?

LW: More shooting!

JC: Favourite tree?

LW: Ponderosa Pine.