I am driving on Route 7 in Baltimore, tempted to close my eyes as the innumerable lights and repetitive glaring reflections in the CarMax parking lot hurt my eyes. It is now that I realize how backwards things have become. I should want to open my eyes to see, to drink in, and to savor the abundance of naturally occurring stimulation with which the world provides us.

In his book Outside Lies Magic John Stilgoe explains the phenomenon of the diminishing importance placed on visual acuity.  It is this lost skill that I aim to at least create a desire to resurrect.  I want viewers to enjoy and crave the exercise of eye and mind that comes with true looking and seeing.

The first time I saw one of Richard Avedon’s portraits I was struck by how much I could see. Time slowed down.  I noticed the way freckles scattered carelessly across skin; I noticed the slight raise of an eyebrow, a bitten lip, a rusted button.  I was in awe of the sensations caused by what was able to be gleaned from the photograph, how well I felt like I knew the subject, and how deeply resonating and long lasting their gaze was, all captured in the stillness of a photograph, the same stillness that forces us to look, and to notice things we often miss in the natural motion of our lives. I strive to create portraits that arouse this kind of reaction in the viewer.

When photographing, I sometimes think of a guitar.  Seeing, for me, is like someone playing a guitar; their fingers come across the strings and send reverberations out into the world and back into the fingers themselves. What I’m interested in most is the reverberations, the sensations caused by seeing.  Because of my interest in engaging visual sensations, I am able to capture moments or frames that highlight unique beauty in the people and environments that surround us.  My aim is to create works that use composition to highlight certain features that make people or objects unique such as textures, flaws, personality traits, physical habits, visible signs of age.  If we purposefully notice these things and engage in the sensations they create our lives will become richer and more fulfilling without the need to consume more.  In the disposable world we’ve created I am interested in savoring details and moments.

The delicate features of our everyday can be simply isolated through the stillness of photographs to show their innate complexity and their enriching power in our lives.  I see portraiture as a way to re-conceptualize the way we look at and think of the body, the face, personality, and identity and how these aspects of humanity relate to one another.
The sculptor Tony Feher said that “I think people are looking all the time, but I don’t think they’re seeing anything.”  I want to create work that asks people to not only look, but to actively see and engage the eyes. The photographs I produce are an invitation to others to see, to savor the moments and details that I have, and then in turn begin to savor their own.