(mouse clicking) (mouse continues clicking) - Here's some of our keeps.

This was a pretty good one.

That one was nice.

This is a banger (beep) photo.

My name is Kiana Webster.

I go here at Eastern Connecticut State University and I live here.

But I'm from Raymond, Maine, right off the coast of Sebago.

And I'm studying photography, primarily.

(camera lens clicks) More back.

You looked hunched.

There you go.

The shoot that I'm doing right now, it's a little more (chuckles) edgy, I guess.

It's all about kind of what it means to defy and how to oppose.

How to oppose and go against what you believe in, or go against what other people believe in.

(camera lens clicking) - [Sophia] Like, here?

- [Kiana] Yeah.

- [Sophia] Okay.

- Take a couple steps back, and then, like, one step to your right.

My teammates, they're... not necessarily the people who I would first pick.

But in a way they've done a really great job of just (chuckles) doing what I asked them to do, even though they don't necessarily understand or believe or think that this is right.

Like, Sophia for example, I was kind of impressed at how calm she was throughout the whole thing.

(laughing) It looks like a (beep) mugshot.

You're good, though.

(Sophia laughs) I actually like it a lot.

Yeah, out of the shoots that we've gone on together, the one that has, like, stuck out to me the most has definitely been the self-portrait.

Just 'cause it's such...

It was so much more of a risk than any of the other shoots that we had gone on.

Like, Sophia was kind of, you know, she was kind of there.

Jared was very, you know, we're just going and getting it done.

We didn't really go inside for that one even at all.

But the one where it was my self-portrait, I think we both pushed the limits of what we really wanted to do.

And I think that was important for us to be able to learn.

(dirt crunching) There's no other lights and no other ladders so, that's what we're gonna have to work with.

(camera lens clicks) (camera lens clicks) (tripod banging) Oh, boy.

We were climbing up on the roof and I remember thinking, "Holy (beep)."

Like, "If this goes wrong, we're so (beep)" like... Like, I could have fallen, I could have gotten stuck on something and hung myself.

Like, there were so many things that could have gone wrong that I was thoroughly impressed that things went as well as they did.

Even though we did run into a little bit of rain, it wasn't...

It was fairly (beep) seamless.

(camera lens clicking) I figured that... if the pictures were going to be under my name, I needed to press the button, which I think is only right, because if you had pressed the button, then it wouldn't really be my photo.

(indistinct store chatter) Yeah, so this... With Kate and Kate's shoot... Do you wanna hit it?

- Yeah.

- Go in there and hit it?

This is coming from a very different inspiration than the self-portrait was.

(hammer banging) (spray paint hissing) It was kind of in a way part of my magnum opus, although I think my self-portrait was a little better.

(tape ripping) This was something I had come up with in conversation with my professor who's guiding me on this project.

And we had been talking about like what defiance looks like.

Is it like, is it graffiti, is it trespassing?

Is it like, listening to loud music?

Is it going against gender norms?

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I remember going home and thinking, there's more to this then I'm letting myself kind of understand.

(blinker clicking) Did you see that guy's hair cut?

- I did.

- Holy crap.

- Yeah.

- And I was sitting in the car and then I was like, well, I had driven past some protesters that day.

And I remember driving by them and being like, "That in a way is defiance in itself."

And although they weren't protesting abortion and those kinds of topics, it got me thinking, in a way, abortion is defiance of the self.

It is... A woman choosing to be pro-life is defying herself of her own rights.

And that is something worth at least documenting.

(camera lens clicks) I don't think people see it nearly as philosophically as I do.

I see it as kind of like a broad expression, a broad exploration.

What does it really mean to defy?

Kind of exploring kind of those avenues and just understanding the definition as a whole, where most people are going to see it as like, "Oh, this is just teenage rebellion in picture form."

I guess I'm really hoping that I get judgment in the sense that like, "Why?

Why did you do this?

Why did you go to these places?

Why did you choose these people?"

'Cause in reality, that's what you're supposed to do with art is question it.

And well, of course, I want a good grade from my professor but, I also want to prove that I can do it, and that I have done it, and I can finish a project from start to end.

And then maybe even impress people.

(camera lens clicking) (camera lens continues clicking) (camera lens continues clicking)