PERSONA
Environmental portrait photography.
The portraits in my Persona series are pure artifice. Rather than being precious souvenirs of a spontaneous engagement, these photos are the product of directing dozens of iterations on set. The backgrounds were subdued through the shutter. The subjects were bathed with light and sculpted with carefully crafted shadows.
Intellectually, I find resonance between these images and our contemporary relationship with news and entertainment in that they present a highly-crafted vision as if it were an ordinary moment. As importantly, the Persona series demonstrates the consideration of identity through a cinematic gaze. What we think we know about these individuals is based on shifting tropes and, thus, our position alternates between being the voyeur and the observed.