Rejected Photos from the American Couple Series

The American Couple Statement

I have always been intrigued by the quarks that hold up a relationship between a couple and how they can also break the very fabric of a relationship. We as humans like to fetishize everyday objects within our lives and human characteristics that make us who we are; we also objectify gender roles and social conventions within ourselves as a couple. Contained inside each relationship there is an affluence of dysfunction and I want to exhibit the most extreme idiosyncrasies of a heterosexual relationship.

Within this series, I attempt to transcend the beauty of satire and build another unconventional, dysfunctional beauty within the transgressions of an American couple and how they cope with the everyday patterns of Western Society. As relationships progress so does the indifference of each other and in this series, I am exploring the complete disconnection of fidelity and intimacy. I also am objectifying and questioning the gender roles of each individual within the series and break the barriers of the model for the American couple.

The American Couple

The Great Richard Avedon Part 1

I really enjoy the emotive and captivating portrait photography by the great New York fashion photographer Richard Avedon. He mostly shot in black and white photography, and he liked to photograph in unexpected and peculiar places. For over 40 years he was a very prolific fashion photographer for Vogue. He also shot numerous celebrities, everybody from Marilyn Monroe to the children of Pablo Picasso.

Richard Avedon Part 1

Sublime Livelihood Statement

Suicide is the prescription of the masses to alleviate obstacles in one’s life the easy way. It is also the destruction of one’s self as well as the ones around them. In this series I am interested in transcending the paradigm and act of suicide and the various methods in-to an everyday thought and activity.

More people think of the act of suicide than actually performing the self-harming act. Within this series the act of suicide is instituted into everyday activities such as reading a novel with a plastic bag over their head and changing clothes with a noose around their neck. The muted color palette emphasizes the demeanor of the act and the implications of self-immolation.

This is the first series that I used hot lights, and it is also the first time I created staged scenes.

Sublime Livelihood

A Vicarious View Statement

Identity is the state or factor that defines oneself as an individual. I am interested in objectifying identity through environmental portraiture of people wearing masks that represent their lives or an aspect of their lives within their environments. I am also interested in the viewer vicariously peering into the lives of people within this series.

In this series I asked various college students to think about what objects reflect who they are or an attribute of their life, and to wear it as a mask or hold it up in front of their faces. The compositions are precisely considered and constructed to where the focus is on the people and yet they become part of their environments.

A Vicarious View

Agglomerative Narrative Series

Within this series I wanted to objectify materialistic wealth and the temporal existence of people within this world. I employed the use of natural lighting and saturated colors. The temporal state of existent light and its application with the models and the ambiance reinforce the idea of the transitory condition of humanity. They are a portrayal and study of the relationship between gluttony and materialism: the gluttonous acquisition of materials.
The portraits were executed with extremely long exposures emphasizing the movement of the models, which in turn increase the intemperate character of gluttony and materialism. The viewer is engulfed by the tight, confined spaces. This series is to construct the idea that people are temporal, but the objects that people acquire exist beyond their time. People become ghosts of their own materials.