I love to wander the streets and observe people. My series, Duologues, records fragments of these encounters. It is a play between two images creating meanings belonging to neither— a discovery process each viewer interprets differently. Reminiscent of the idea of synchronicity, an idea that describes meaningful coincidences, my pairings intentionally produce uncanny relationships.
Shooting intuitively and spontaneously, my eyes lock onto the unusual, the outstanding, and even the mundane. Frequently, dramatic lighting shapes the photographs. I collect the unrelated pieces like stems in a wildflower field - disconnected, yet bound together by their place of origin. The visuals seem familiar but particulars will distinguish them from the common.
I match the images by playing a game of Memory: finding in each image shapes, gestures, and symbols that rhyme. The rhyming may occur within the major elements in the image, such as the subject, or in minute details that otherwise might go unnoticed. By pairing two photos that occurred at different moments in time, the story that emerges can bring them together. The final sequence feels deeply connected, even though the encounters on the street were random.
At first glance, the candid portraits resemble studio shots devoid of time and place. I reveal the spontaneity of the photographs slowly, through fragmented and off-centered compositions of banal details, inserted throughout the series. While moving through the Rallentando sequence, photos offer visual clues that become part of a bigger mosaic of my daily encounters.
I shoot instinctively and spontaneously. The focus of my frames is often a monotone-colored canvas that pedestrians fill by simply passing through. A stream of colorful impressions reflects the never-ending movement of the busy and crowded city. The muted tones and partially out-of-focus images challenge the boundaries between representation and abstraction by often, within a singular frame, suggesting anonymity and emotional disconnection.
Some people brush by me, others keep their distance; sometimes I capture a gesture, sometimes just a flowing lock of hair but all are part of the fabric of the everyday life I love to observe. This series celebrates the brief and kaleidoscopic moments I encounter in the city streets of Manhattan.
March 21, 2020, marked the Spring of a different kind - New York City residents were ordered to stay at home amidst a spreading Covid19 pandemic. A virus that had made its way to the US, the unimaginable had happened. Fear of the unknown, the many infected and sudden death swept with a vengeance through all neighborhoods of New York City. Almost overnight, my city turned from a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds to darkness and silence.
The series Darker Days reflects my response to this physically and emotionally challenging time. By day, my camera was pointed towards my home and family. Only at night did I dare to venture outside when the darkness and the rhythm of my steps calmed my frayed nerves and showed my neighborhood in a different light.
