about me
My name is Maya Dillick and I was born and raised in San Francisco, California. I have been captivated by photography
and videography ever since I can remember, though I did not originally aspire to be an artist. As a child, I thought my calling
was more on the side of science. I was fascinated by paleontology and zoology, studying the creatures that once roamed
the planet and what has evolved since. In high school though, I quickly came to realize that what I loved about those fields
of study was not the scientific process but rather the history and stories that shape them. I loved learning about dinosaurs
but I didn’t care much about discovering how old a fossil is. It was then that I began to consider art as a viable career path
for me. I wanted to pursue a career that would allow me to both uncover and tell my own stories, which is how I found my
passion for filmmaking.
I am currently a third year undergraduate student at UC Santa Cruz, pursuing a double major in Film & Digital Media
(FDM),and History of Art & Visual Culture (HAVC). In my free time I work on a lot of film projects, both for myself and for the Film
Production Coalition for my school. Cinematography is my favorite part of filmmaking, and I jump at any opportunity to be a
Director of Photography on a project. This quarter, I am producing a twelve minute short film with a crew of fifty people, which
has been a big learning experience so far but it is incredibly rewarding. Much of my art historical research has been focused
on American art and culture of the mid-twentieth century, specifically based in the American West. Recently, I have developed
a deep interest in the atomic frontier and “tacky” Americana, specifically as it relates to the history of Las Vegas. It is a goal of
mine to create a photobook about what I call “weird Vegas,” images revealing the eerie loneliness that characterizes Vegas
and the glitz and glamor that veils it. It is a project and a theme that I hope to explore throughout my career, and I have merely
just begun.
