The Scholar: Neysa Tapanes

The Project: Kink in a Box

The Essential Question: Ms. Tapanes conceived, photographed, and designed a mock-up of a fashion magazine inspired by her favorite publications.

Notable Quote: “The idea for my project actually started from the mind map I made during the first week of class. The main bubble on my mind map was photography, and somehow that brought me to ‘fashion magazine.’ I started looking at my favorite fashion magazines for inspiration (like i-D and The CR Fashion Book). My idea started to evolve once I began doing the photo shoots. I noticed that each shoot had it’s own style, so I wanted to make each shoot into its own unique section as a whole. Although each section is different, I think they are united by my photography style and by my layouts.”

Biggest Challenge: “Probably the actual putting together of the magazine. I had taken a bunch of photo classes so taking the photos was easy, but doing the layout and incorporating text and making it look good was really hard.”

Surprising Discovery: “I don’t know if this is surprising but because I did a lot of one-on-one photo shoots with people I didn’t necessarily know, I had to learn how to make people feel comfortable.”

Tip for Future Scholars: “Don’t worry about planning so much. A lot of people in my class planned for a long time, whereas I just kind of went into it, and somehow it looks good.”