Jeffrey Opp
I work in San Jose, United States
I first picked up a camera while serving overseas in Sicily for the US Navy. Using a my father’s old Pentax camera, I photographed the sites and cities I visited. The desire to make images drew me to a variety of places specifically to make pictures. After my time in the service, I decided it would be brilliant to leave the Navy and pursue coursework in photography at a university.
I landed back in North Dakota, my home state, and enrolled just across the state line at Minnesota State University Moorhead. I studied photography through the Art and Design Department and documentary photography with the Mass Communications Department. I discovered the directness of the documentary approach to photography and that being out in the world making photographs is the most important part of my art making practice. I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in December of 2009.
After graduating I moved to San Jose, California to pursue an MFA degree at San Jose State University. My work mainly addresses the fallout from the economic recession. I also construct books that fuse images and text to describe, probe, question, and alter the economic system in which we are all a part. This allows the viewers to reevaluate their roles as a participant in a vast, volatile global economic system.