We would like to welcome our first ever YMY guest photographer, Megan Cullen. Having followed Megan's work (her blog) for a while, the images Megan produces always has a feel of freshness about them and she has a good knack for capturing those singular moments. We got in touch with her to ask a few quick questions.

Why photography, what attracted you to the medium?.....I don't really know what exactly attracted me to photography. My Mum took me and my brother on a trip around the States when I was 12 and when we reached Santa Fe and Albuquerque I remember being amazed by the colours of the landscape and sky. I asked Mum if I could use her camera and then I snapped lots of shots on the trip and made a photo album when I got home. This was probably the first time I know I had the feeling of wanting to take photographs.Then at high school instead of doing interschool sport (which I sucked at), I had the option to go to an arts college on Wednesday afternoons during my final two years of school. At first it was just a way to get out of doing sport but the more I shot, the more I loved it and things just went from there.

How do you think photography can contribute to and be helpful in society?.....I guess in the most obvious sense photojournalism and documentary photography can bring to light stories of injustice that can hopefully motivate people to offer aid, change, money, whatever to help the cause. I think almost any sort of photography however, is a document of a time and place. It is an easily accessible form of historical archive that we all have in old dusty drawers in our house. I mean did our parents think their happy snaps would fill us with intrigue and make us laugh at their outfits? (my Dad used to wear a pink safari suit - for real). Even when I look back to photos from a few years ago it seems like life was so much different, perhaps simpler then. It reminds us of where we came from, who we are, how we've changed. I'm not sure how my photography can contribute to society. Maybe one person will say "I didn't know that" after they see one of my pics. I'd be happy with that.

Are there any photographers you can recommend for us to check out?.....Helen Korpak - amazing young talent from Finland, Eugene Richards - The master, Nirrimi Hakanson - 17 and gonna do big things! And Gosha Rubchinsky - Slashie

Thanks Megan, YMY Collective

Note: Here at YMY we like to share all of the photographers that inspire and excite us. We feel that lately, many websites which feature visual artists simply pull images from other websites, do a bit of a Google search and post it on their site. YMY aims to make it a bit more personal, contacting the artist and asking a few quick questions to get a first hand view of their thoughts. We try not to get too much into their bio as that stuff is more easily accessible. YMY

~ 5th ~