The Photography of Anna Thompson

Anna Thompson is a little different from your average 18-year-old. For one, she holds an administrative internship at the Eugene O’Neill Theater. And two, she is one of those well-spoken artistic ingénues you’d love to hate if it weren’t for her quiet-natured brilliance, poise, and vision.

At her young age, Thompson, a Waterford native, has been exhibited in venues throughout the region. Her photos placed at the 2011 Old Lyme Land Trust Amateur Photo Contest and the 2011 Connecticut College Arboretum’s Annual Amateur Photo Contest. 

Thompson’s love of photography started early with a generous helping of the arts provided by her teacher mother and musician father. Her adolescence was filled with writing, creative dance, and piano lessons. Photography was a passing hobby, relegated to family parties and vacations across the country.

“As you keep photographing things that come, you start seeing things in a different way than you did before,” Thompson explained of her migration to photography as art. “I [started to notice] that this is something I like or this is something I can do that I’m good at.”

Being self-aware is one of Thompson’s strong suits as a photographer. When she was still young, Thompson felt dissatisfied by the rigors of public education and entered into homeschooling. It was a decision that she constantly defended, facing misconceptions that tend to isolate her from other teenagers.

Thompson, however, looks at the decision as a formative one; a decision that has framed who she is now and one that continues to influence her photography.

Thompson’s latest work takes shape around this stalwart independence and non-conformist attitude. Though her previous work, mostly landscape and scenery, incorporated elements of Caravaggio in rich lighting and color, Thompson has, of late, taken risks with unusual shots, textures, and emotions. She is a master of melancholy and employs irony with the wit of someone much older. (It’s no wonder she claims to draw inspiration from Henry David Thoreau, Woody Allen, and Richard Avedon.)

“With photography, the challenge is trying not to be cliché,” Thompson explained. “You really have to make it your own and individualize it, which is [hard] to do. You’re making something your own that is already existing, which I think is a little bit harder than just creating something.”  

The challenge that lay ahead for Thompson is in finding balance between her knack for scenery, and its inherent organic simplicity, and the neurotic fancies of an idealistic and reckless artist.

“That contrast in nature is what I really find interesting,” said Thompson. “Any scenery you look at has a silence you can capture…[but] within that calmness, there’s always a rush of anger. Behind everything, there’s always something lurking. And that’s what I like to capture or at least I try to.”

Thompson has yet to make the leap from amateur to professional, which is all the same to her because she’s still finding footing as an artist. Beneath layers of relentless focus resides, as in most artists, a young talent learning to deal with criticism and questioning her validity.

“Taking pictures is so private and independent,” said Thompson, “but displaying them is a whole different thing. Everyone’s a photographer, but I’ve been trying to take it to another level.”

Still, Thompson is in no rush to get to that level. She is quite content in her internship and momentary delving into other mediums, like writing.

 “Well, I’m still young,” Thompson stated. “Now is really the time I start pursuing more things…I think it’s important to always do what you love. I’ve seen so many people go through life and they get to a certain point and [feel] they didn’t get to do what they wanted to do…there’s definitely more I can learn. I mean, I’m just starting out.”

Whether she knows it or not, Thompson has become a subject ripe for her own talents—something unexpected, unhinged, and ready to be immortalized.”

As Thoreau said, "It is great art to saunter."