Meet Ashley Dondes, a junior double-majoring in Media Arts and Design and Art at JMU. She’s excited to share her first-ever publicly showcased gallery collection, “We Gathered, Still,” capturing life in downtown Harrisonburg. 

Ashley’s journey to photography is one unlike most, beginning two years ago after an injury in Club Cheer sidelined her. Still wanting to remain active with the team, Ashley picked up her dad’s old camera and started capturing photos and videos for the team. This experience helped unlock a passion for photography and videography that helped her realize the potential for pursuing a creative degree in college, which inspired her to change her major from Kinesiology to Media Arts and Design. 

While many college students leave Harrisonburg during summer break, Ashley chose to stay. During that time, she attended a free concert downtown on the Fourth of July, which would become the setting for her collection. “I just wanted to go and capture people, and their raw, natural life,” she says. “I didn’t know what was going to be there. I didn’t know who was going to be there. I didn’t know anything other than I just want this to feel real.” 

As she takes photos, Ashley always tries to do the opposite of what people expect, an idea reflected in this collection. Rather than focusing on the concert itself, Ashley pointed her lens toward the crowd, choosing to capture their genuine reactions and emotions. The resulting photos, edited to stunning black and white, showcase a world without distraction and focused on the little things.

Ashley hopes that her collection will help remind people that despite the polarization and turmoil in the world, there are a lot of moments that the media doesn’t capture. “I think it’s super important to remind people, like, yes, [the] media is showing us this, but there are also moments the media isn’t showing. And this is what life’s about.”

View the full collection here