I started using the camera to document that which is closest to me: my friends, my family, and the place in which we live. I enjoy the directness of the portrait process and the ability to learn about someone after the camera captures them in the moment.
Every photograph is shot in black-and-white, medium format film to emphasize the subject differently than it were shot in color. These photographs are deconstructions of my own emotions and expressions. This process is a detour from making what I had imagined as the perfect photo, allowing focus on my personal connection with what was in front of me. The landscape around us is now interpretations, using light to paint its qualities. I started collecting these interactions through their atmospheric movements.
In working with film, I can re-establish my relationship with the fundamental aspects of photography.
Light and chemistry combine in a kind of alchemy where I am no longer in full control of the process where chance plays a role in the outcome of the image. The camera is no longer a restriction; it acts as my paintbrush. In any situation in life, I want to be confident and comfortable in my ability to be able to make a photograph. The process of shooting, developing, and scanning film step by step was a shift in cadence for me. Every step of the way, I had to remain conscious of the rules of photography and trust the process. With film, I am not able to see what I have captured until after it is developed. The physical nature of switching to a hands-on approach to my medium helped to define my relationship with photography.
By using the mechanical and chemical limitations of the medium, I can reflect on how using photography in this manner can change my perspective of how I experience the world. Using photography in this way, I can explore something beyond the outside of the conventional stream of images one might typically see.
night life
Archival inkjet print 13" x 19", 2020
brandon
Archival inkjet print 13" x 19", 2020
da'quon
Archival Inkjet Print, 13" x 19", 2020
xander
Archival inkjet print 13" x 19", 2020
the set (1)
Archival inkjet print 13" x 19", 2020
the set (2)
Archival inkjet print 13" x 19", 2020
the set (3)
Archival inkjet print 13" x 19", 2020
apple
Archival inkjet print 13" x 19", 2020
hand
Archival inkjet print 13" x 19", 2020
quarantine (1)
Archival inkjet print 13" x 19", 2020
quarantine (2)
Archival inkjet print 13" x 19", 2020