Though I’ve primarily used this block as a tool for quick-links to features and many, many Flickr uploads, I’ve decided that it may be beneficial to occasionally post a “voice” along with some of the images, since the conceptual process behind the images is really, the main reason why I take photographs.

Upon meeting Simon, he asked me what the project that I was undertaking was based on.  I was at a loss for words, as I really… had no idea.  So much of what my work was originally based on was Americana and images that represented what “America” was to me, since my photographs were always so inspired by the songs and movies that I grew up with.  Coming to a new country (Australia), I couldn’t really make work about America anymore, could I?

When I first arrived, I started slowly, mostly taking photographs of the landscape, which absolutely blew me away.  Though I am, through and through, a portrait photographer, it was interesting trying to take in a landscape.  No longer would I wait for a person to turn their head in just the right way, I would instead stare, and stare, and… stare.  I am not a landscape photographer.  I am in awe of what I am looking at, but unsure what to do with it.

And so, when I tried to explain what it was that I was doing, and trying to bridge the previous work with the new work, one of the things that I noticed was how close I always was to my subjects.  Physically.  They are mostly head and shoulder shots, taken in very claustrophobic spaces.  Here, I am outside, using natural light, and feeling inspired by the landscape and its whims.  The photographs are very influenced by the landscape that I am in awe of, yet feeling somewhat distached from.  And that was step one for developing these new portraits: stand back and take it in, slowly.