I like to think of my images as stills from dreams and indeed much of my inspiration is derived from dreams. There is so much to learn from the dream world and the subconscious and one of the most exciting parts of being an artist is exploring these areas and fleshing them out. I started out in art school as a fashion design major and then a painter but subsequently felt frustrated with the limitations of the materials. Photography was an obvious next step for me because it’s a practical way of experimenting with many mediums and distilling the experience. For example, I can create an experience such as an entire set or a character and then steal a moment from that world and place it into the context of a photo frame. The possibilities to experiment with within the dream world are really endless but the concepts I find myself going back to most are archetypes, potential, sexuality and themes of childhood.
Coming across the wet plate technique was exciting because it allowed me to scale down the scene I was shooting and focus on some of the beautiful details inherent in everyday objects or in peoples faces. Wet plate images have such a surreal and haunting quality that I found trying to shoot a large set or concept with the process ended up being just overwhelming. Less is more with this process in terms of subject matter because somehow whatever it is being documented seems to speak through the medium with a clarity that can’t be found in conventional film.