The collection of images here are about honesty and intimacy.
I first picked up my camera during one of my lowest and darkest moments. The camera enabled me to reconnect with the world when I no longer wanted to be a part of it. Pushed by a close friend of mine, I wanted to document my journey with depression, our environment, and my connections with people. It was a sense of release as well as experimentation with the stigma surrounding mental health.
I often ask my subjects to look directly down the lens, as if they were looking at me. Being behind the lens and composing an image gives me the ability to look closer, to look for the detail in the mundane, to look for truth, and inevitably capture the honesty. Reflecting on my portraits I see the trust between myself, my friends, and family. As I search for their fragility, I feel a duty to respect the intimacy.
What excites me is capturing a moment in the most natural state. The truest form and not so much working from a technical perspective with the camera, however, allowing the moment to just be. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s raw and unedited and this is why I love working with analogue. Being limited to 36 frames per film allows me to focus on the purity of the image. This restraint encourages me to think deeper and be more present with my subject. It was this need to be present that allowed me to reengage in the world. The more I clicked through the frames, the deeper my understanding and the stronger I grew in accepting my depression for what it was.
I hope through showing the honesty in my work is as powerful as the vulnerability in baring my soul.