Solitude

I use photography to try and document and express both the tension of human connection and the emotional distance felt between people living so close to one another. How can we be surrounded by millions of people yet feel so alone? People, walk side by side from here to there, almost wholly unseen. Invisible bodies occupy the concrete valleys and surfaces. I seek to document that feeling; to understand it, and embrace it. There is a feeling I am chasing. It is the feeling of uneasiness you feel when approaching a new situation for the first time. Enveloped in the fear of the unknown. Consumed and enamored by the interaction of people yet to meet. Strangers to one another. Invisible to one another until their paths cross. Walking down the street, I am in constant search of the unknown. Keeping eyes peeled for that which forces me to question. In constant search and study of the city and its inhabitants. Shadows act as direct metaphor for strangers and the strange in general. Two stops underexposed and the shadows reveal nothing. In that nothingness there is potential for everything. Open up a stop and details begin to reveal themselves. I use shadow the same way a painter uses oil or ink on canvas. Less a void and more a representation of all that is present and yet unknown. Figures cloaked in encroaching darkness. An uneasy, unrelenting void scooping them up as the sun dips behind the buildings. The massive concrete obstacles blocking the suns revealing rays. Allowing for the unknown potential to sweep the streets. In allies and corners there exists potential. I use my camera to study and capture that potential. The tension in my photographs stems from the voyeuristic nature of the images. An uneasiness shared between strangers yet to meet. My lens acts as the eye of the viewer. Forcing them to reconcile with the distance and uneasiness sometimes felt in a large city.