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Ever since I set foot in my first photography class in my sophomore year of high school, emphasis was placed on the traditional, 35mm silver gelatin based print. For several years, this is how I worked, focusing on how to make the perfect darkroom print. I cherish the experience in formal photography that I got from those formative years and the jumping off point that I received.
It wasn't until 2008 when I took a radically different direction from traditional photography and started using now-defunct Polaroid film that I really was able to find myself as a photographer. I've never been one not to go big, so when I heard that Polaroid shut down production of their film, I stocked up on quite a bit of it. The sheer amount of film I purchased allowed me to learn how to loosen up and really shoot photos.
In the latter half of 2009, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction. I started focusing on alternative processes, most of which were from the 1800s; you can't get much more traditional than the 1800s. The handmade aspect of ferrotypes, ambrotypes, and hand-coated paper as well as the age of each process, is what drew me to them in the first place.
I often work on more than one series concurrently. I look to explore human nature through my photographs, which is why all of my series tend to have an underlying theme that ties them all together, and that is the idea of identity. Exploring sexuality, gender, dream imagery and more, they explore the psychological aspects of how we see ourselves as humans, and how I see my own self.
Current Series: