NoSafeDistance

These photographs address my interest in photography without permission. Today we live in a post-privacy world, an image-obsessed society where cameras are everywhere. With or without our knowledge, we are being photographed several times a day. When I make these images, I am separated from my subjects by glass store windows. Having a camera with a big lens pointed by an unknown person outside the store creates a moment of sudden awareness of something unexpected. Reactions are varied. By cropping and enlarging the faces, which are often distorted by the window's reflections, and by removing the context, there is a certain ambiguity created. The images can reference mug shots, identity cards, Facebook friends, missing persons, even paparazzi celebrity captures. More closely they resemble surveillance photos, which is what they really are. They are meant to challenge our expectations of anonymity and privacy. Work from this series was used to apply for and receive a 2012 Individual Artist Fellowship grant for Photography from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.