The Space Between
This collection of photographs recontextualizes the American family snapshot into that of high art. In keeping with the tradition of family snapshots, I choose to take photographs at pivotal, significant moments. However, the distinction between snapshot and photograph is made when I choose what I consider to be a moment of importance. These are not photographs of birthday parties or holiday celebrations. Instead, they are tributes to the mundane and the everyday. For example, my little sister after a shower, my mother blankly watching television, or my father holding a grape soda in front of a heap of unfolded laundry. These seemingly unordinary events are frozen within the photographic image, demanding the viewer to reassess the significance of these everyday routines.
Every portrait is an exchange. It is neither a simple documentation, nor a manipulative act of creation on my part. Each family member and I work together to produce the resulting image. These are our collaborative efforts to reflect and project uncertainties and fears upon one another while attempting to better understand each other. This is what it means to for me to exist within the context of one another.
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The portraits resonate a deep love. It is with sublime curiosity that I find myself watching the rest of my family. It is how I have always related to them, through intense observation and internal questioning. The act of photography parallels a yearning to connect to my surroundings.
Each portrait is an examination of human existence, my existence, ours together and apart from one another. Relationships are scrutinized and presented in a manner that allows for reflection not only of the subject but also of the audience’s connection to the subject. Instead of presenting the viewer with specific events that have shaped each person’s present psychological state, I reveal only the aftermath, leaving the space between events and emotional outcomes open to the audience for interpretation. Visual clues are included within each portrait to better orchestrate a narrative.
Although these photographs may not reflect the ideal way my family wants to be perceived, it is the way in which I can best describe them, and thus myself at this pivotal point in time. A time where we have all reached crossroads: one between childhood and adulthood, between communal existence and independence. This is a realization of my own impending independence and thus my existence outside of our home life. There is loss, there is letting go: this is me looking at them, and them looking back at me.
Every portrait is an exchange. It is neither a simple documentation, nor a manipulative act of creation on my part. Each family member and I work together to produce the resulting image. These are our collaborative efforts to reflect and project uncertainties and fears upon one another while attempting to better understand each other. This is what it means to for me to exist within the context of one another.
¬
The portraits resonate a deep love. It is with sublime curiosity that I find myself watching the rest of my family. It is how I have always related to them, through intense observation and internal questioning. The act of photography parallels a yearning to connect to my surroundings.
Each portrait is an examination of human existence, my existence, ours together and apart from one another. Relationships are scrutinized and presented in a manner that allows for reflection not only of the subject but also of the audience’s connection to the subject. Instead of presenting the viewer with specific events that have shaped each person’s present psychological state, I reveal only the aftermath, leaving the space between events and emotional outcomes open to the audience for interpretation. Visual clues are included within each portrait to better orchestrate a narrative.
Although these photographs may not reflect the ideal way my family wants to be perceived, it is the way in which I can best describe them, and thus myself at this pivotal point in time. A time where we have all reached crossroads: one between childhood and adulthood, between communal existence and independence. This is a realization of my own impending independence and thus my existence outside of our home life. There is loss, there is letting go: this is me looking at them, and them looking back at me.
