Ghost Stories

"No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen." –Minor White This series began when I found myself compelled to photograph people who appeared either haunted or haunting. As the work progressed, I widened the initial scope of the project to include portraits of people who are in some way “disembodied”; those people who because of their beliefs, physicality, sexual or political identity find themselves marginalized and without presence in our culture. The resulting images reveal gesture without detail, obtained via processes that rely on chance and accident, amplifying the opportunities to capture the numinous. They hint at an underlying thaumaturgical drama that unveils forgotten personas, thereby presenting a documentary of the imagination with a history both real and fictitious. The work is informed in part by the Spirit Photography of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Through the use of photomanipulation techniques, a group of early photographers produced images with an ethereal quality. Even though these spectres were for the most part products of either accidents of slow film or calculated hoax, the stylistic presentation of “that which is not normally seen,” became a guiding factor for this work. Original series prints are Polaroid 20x24s Reproduction limited edition prints are 11x14 pigment prints Ghost Stories book available at http://blur.by/1iiz0Eo