One day, Mark Jaworski would like to photograph musician Tom Waits.
"We would just work so perfectly together . He's just brilliant," said the photographer, artist and junior business management major. Until then, Jaworski is getting his practice with band promotion photography. He was hired his freshman year by Eyeball Records.
"They asked me to do a shoot and I didn't know what I was doing. I still think it's my best shoot," he said.
He said the bands he has worked with have been happy with his work. He has also done a shoot for Suicide Girls, a softcore pin-up Web site, which he described as "not my style."
Before he got interested in photography about two years ago, Jaworski admitted he didn't quite understand the profession.
"I never respected photography or photographers. I just thought it was too easy . You just click a button."
Since then, he has formulated his own ideas as to what works for him and what doesn't. He likes to use natural light, but always carries external lights with him. He also doesn't like to alter a lot while developing his film, and says his work is "pure." For him, the hardest part is learning to use the flashes properly to get what he wants.
When he gets to choose his own subjects, Jaworski likes to photograph interesting and distinct-looking people.
"I don't like ordinary-looking people. They bore me," he said. He also doesn't like to photograph bands near train tracks, brick walls and fire escapes.
"Most wall shots, I won't do," he said. "Unless it's really exceptional."
Jaworski has never taken a photography class. He has picked up everything on his own, and has shown no interest in taking a class.
"I would rather find a photographer much better than myself and have him take me under his wing," he said.
Although he hasn't studied the subject extensively, he still has his favorites and can appreciate an exceptional picture and photographer. He looks highly on famed photographer Yousuf Karsh and his portrait of Winston Churchill taken during World War II.
"I think it's fantastic. It captured his personality and emotion . but it also captured England's personality and emotion during the time," he said. Another favorite is Joe Rosenthal's "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima," also taken during World War II. To Jaworski, it is the "most powerful picture ever taken."
Jaworski also dabbles in drawing. He says he enjoyed drawing as a child, but didn't really do it often.
For his artwork, he said his biggest inspiration is a sketchbook and letters that once belonged to a medic in the Pacific during World War II, whom he said was a "brilliant writer, brilliant artist."
He added, "By looking at and reading his stuff, I felt like I knew him."
Jaworski's pieces are almost always done in black and white, and he describes them as "almost like stills from a movie, with one line to go with it."
Jaworski is working toward a degree in business management, but he doesn't have any definite plans for his future. He would like to expand on the T-shirt company, Vig Tees, he is starting with his brother. He also added he would like to be a war correspondent photographer. For now, he says, he is just taking it "one day at a time."
