Lamar Kendrick-Dial is a photographer in his sophomore year at NYU studying Photography and Imaging. He grew up in North Carolina, spending time in the city of Charlotte while simultaneously living in rural areas outside of the city. His current photographic work, inspired by both of these areas where he grew up, focuses on fiction and non-fiction narratives that revolve around mental health and conflict between individuals and the world around them. He is interested in continuing to work with fine art and portraiture, while also experimenting with other styles of photography. 


I am very grateful for the opportunity to receive this scholarship. In this past academic year, I have been focusing on making work that expands my portfolio in more creative ways in means of lighting and narrative, which I have only hinted towards in my past work. I have always been interested in storytelling through other mediums, but photography officially became a part of me in 2018 when I attended the NYU Tisch Summer Photography Program, which pushed me to fall in love with photography. Since then, photography has been an integral part of my life and how I function. I have recently become enamored with the use of artificial light as a means to enhance my photos and a way to push forward the narratives that I create. I’m inspired by the way light can be used to emulate the feelings of characters to the way it can make the most subtle yet important differences in an image. I want to push the boundaries of lighting and how we use it in images to tell our stories. In the next academic year, I plan to continue working on my ongoing series Limbo, among other projects that are still taking shape in my mind. Limbo exists as a void in between trauma and the eventual time when healing occurs, and it consists of photographic scenes of various semi-anonymous portrait subjects stuck in desolate moments in time.