The psychology and behavior of a person are aspects that interest me, not one’s physical attributes. As emphasized in my work, I focus on psychological portraiture. My images allude to a story of each of my subject’s inner thoughts, ranging from meditative experiences to their deepest anxieties.
In Concurrence (2012) I created diptychs that evoke an individual’s meditative space. Some of these pairings are based in what I know of each person; some are imagined spaces, essentially falsified through my own fantasy of where their mind might go when it is calm. Rineke Dijkstra’s beach portraits, capturing the awkwardness of “tweens” as they stood raw and vulnerable in their bathing suits, largely influenced this body of work in both style and psychological interest.
Gestures (2013) explores seemingly insignificant moments and highlights mundane gestures. These images call attention to body language in the form of gestural reactions. When photographing, I sought out gestures that were fleeting and transitional. These physical manifestations of each subject’s thoughts or emotions were emphasized as a result of conversing about intimate relationships.
Henri Cartier-Bresson coined the term “the decisive moment” for his street photography, where disparate elements of a photo come together in a fraction of a second. My photographs in Gestures emphasize the indecisive moment, a moment that appears accidental and denies the conventions of photography. These images, which might be seen as outtakes from a traditional, composed portrait sitting, create a space for anti-portraiture as they formalize the informal. In this body of work, I propelled intimate conversations with my subjects in order to bring out their gestures, and thus a visual representation of their words or thoughts. I emphasized these moments through studio portraiture that traditionally are not captured, let alone magnified.
As exemplified in Concurrence and Gestures, I hold a strong interest in psychology and what a person’s body language says about the current state of their thoughts, anxieties, and meditative experiences. By interpreting their gestures and expressions, I aim to deduce their mental states. The intention behind this interest aims to create a visual analysis of human behavior overall.