My central drive in photography deals with the interactions of humans. My work stems from multiple avenues. My influences are not just photographers but also in film, writing, and psychology. In film, I admire people like Woody Allen who present flawed individuals and let the story progress due to their thoughts and actions. It's an offensive form of storytelling. In writing, people like Kurt Vonnegut often do not even have a true plot, but they let their characters interact so the voyage and impressions become the story, or even the overall objective itself. In psychology, I have been very intrigued by issues such as sex roles in facial structures and face-space theory. For photography, my influences have actually come after I began working on projects and discovered people who are or were working in a similar fashion to myself. Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus come to mind.

        In photography, I've shot first and found influences second. In psychology, my idle questions led me to find things in the physical world. In film and writing, I lean toward the quests for understanding the human condition. This is what draws me to photography that deals with people and pushes me to interact with my subjects. Often, it is hard for me to show a photo of people I took if I did not also personally interact with them. It feels voyeuristic, like I am removed from the photo and have no voice over what is taking place. I like to know what I just photographed. Often, I do not want the people in my photos to be representations of a larger situation. I want that individual to be the situation.

       My desire to get in close with the subject stems from my equipment's technical limitations during an earlier time of my life. Working with a small pocket digital camera, shallow depth of field was nearly unheard of. And if I used the zoom option on the camera, I was left with a sadly soft image. My only options were to keep the camera at its widest (and sharpest) millimeter, and utilize the "macro" option whenever possible. This helped to give me the shallow depth of field I always wanted in my photos.

       Working like this helped train me in getting up close with my photography and avoiding a shy style seen in so much other photographic work.

       My biggest obstacle early on was essentially learning the various genres which photography falls in. What is art? What defines it? I still cannot answer that question, but I can at least start to see where my place is inside of a broad world of photography.

       Dealing with the labeling of something being too commercial was an early hurdle. How can I make photos that do not look commercial, if my primary interests took me in such a direction? What is commercial, anyway? Creating something with the intent to promote and sell an external "something"? Finding Richard Avedon was a breakthrough for me. Here was a man who worked for years in fashion photography and was very successful at it. At the same time, his portraits of people carried a commercial look yet were shown as art. It helped give me confidence that commercial can be a certain look, but ultimately the deciding factor was intent.

       Frank Hamrick is the man who introduced the work of Avedon to me. He told me, " (Avedon's) work is like yours, but black and white." I was excited upon seeing the first few images. I had been producing a series of portraits of random people I pulled into my studio, but had no references to other large bodies of work that focused in upper torso and headshots. Avedon was my first link.

       The more I studied Avedon, the more I realized that for every reason we were similar, we were also contrasting different. He shot in black and white, I shoot in color. He used a large format camera, while I use a digital SLR. But technical aspects aside, his work also carries a darker note to it. Only occasionally do you see an optimistic photo by him. Now this says nothing of whether or not his work is good (it is great). But the moods of our photography are similar to contrasting ranges of the same musical note. His work is an inspiration for his quest of finding people inside of a diverse world and building something special out of them. Additionally, his ability to express a celebrity in ways that one doesn't typically see them shows his ability to interact with the person he is photographing. I feel that would be our greatest similarity. The differences in the photos could just be our personalities.

       His photos of common people from the American West were met with both fanfare and criticism. He was accused of manipulating the people he encountered to fulfill his own interpretation of the West. But really, what is art photography if it is not an individual's opinions and views manifested through a lens? To show only one side and refuse to acknowledge an alternative is propaganda. But what is a viewpoint? Is it an opinion you are tossing out for public consumption, and then allowing viewers to make up his or her own mind? I like to think so.

       In a photograph, one only gets a glimpse of a moving, revolving, and ever-changing reality. A photograph only shows the truth that happened for 1/60 of a second. A large part of being a photographer is one who can reject images in order to filter an overload. So, if one can only show one image, make sure it is the image that shows what took place before your eyes. And if the photographer helped guide the image, let your hands show, metaphorically speaking.

       My original fascination and curiosity with humans, and the human condition expressed through the faces we all wear, originated not from art but through psychology. Midway through undergraduate school, I began to question what made a face male or female, if truly a face was simply a DNA composite of both a mother and a father. If a boy has his father's eyes but his mother's nose, then isn't his face both male and female, genetically speaking? If one was to remove all sex role characteristics (glasses, jewelry, hair style, makeup, etc) and all secondary sex characteristics (facial hair, Adams apple, etc) from a face and only allow the face itself to be seen, would a person be distinguished as male or female, or simply an androgynous composite of the person's inherited DNA?

       This question stuck with me in my head for a year, which is when I stumbled upon an obscure psychological idea known as "face-space theory." Essentially, this spoke of a default idea inside of everyone's mind that he or she felt was the generic face of humankind. Having this opinion inside the psyche, one is then able to distinguish one person from another by how they differentiate from someone else. If my default face is of a Caucasian male, around thirty years old, sans glasses and facial hair, then everyone I meet is identifiable by how they are different from that image in my head and is therefore distinguishable because of this.

       This is also ground for sameness impressions some have when meeting people of a different race from one's typical encounters. The phenomena that "they all look alike" takes place because the differences are encountered in most people one meets inside that race because the primary structures are all shared by that certain group which collectively differ from the default face. The minute differences can only be discovered through repeated exposures to those different from what you are typically used to encountering.

       My belief is while we have a formed default based on our repeated exposure to those around us, I feel that we do not truly know what our default face is. My best guess is that our default face is actually our own face. We see others and notice how they differ from (or resemble) our own characteristics. This is neither good nor bad, just a consequence of mirrors everywhere in our lives. Some may use this as a feeling of superiority, while others embrace it as finding themselves somehow inside of everyone else.

       My fascination with the faces I encounter transcends into a desire to learn about the human condition. In a short story, I once wrote "...the guy that everyone passes on a curb and thinks nothing of him, well that is me along with hundreds of other common pedestrians. If people will take the time to get to know their fellow walkers on the journey to a job or store, they will find that everyone has something going on that is worth telling." I feel that working in portraiture helps me find that story in those I interact with.

       In that short story, I also added, "This just so happens to be my story." I feel that in every portrait, you see my attempt to show you myself. Every shot is teamwork to create the final image. You might be seeing that person, but my hand is showing.

       Richard Avedon once said every portrait he took was a self-portrait. He compared himself more to a sculptor. His models were simply clay he molded into a larger vision he had. When he photographed Sandra Bennett, he would later use the photo for his book, "In the American West." Years later, upon returning to the West to meet up again with those he photographed, Bennett met him with questions.

       She said she was twelve when the photo was taken. It was just something that happened and she moved on, forgot about it. Then six years later, when she was eighteen and prom queen of her high school, there was her past coming back to greet her. Or in her opinion, it was coming back to humiliate her. She called it the worst hair day magnified. She was an awkward twelve year old with freckles in overalls. The photo she wished she could bury forever was now on the front of a prominent photography book.

       But Avedon rebutted what she said by explaining the relationship between photographer and model. He told her she had a lot to say, by that meaning her clothing, her expression, and the personality showing from beneath. In the darkroom, he could choose to magnify or adjust things through the printing. But she had to trust him with her image. She couldn't say she was not there.

       I feel what he was actually doing was finding himself in her. Every photo is a self-portrait. What did he, a middle-aged man from New York, see of himself in a twelve-year-old girl from Colorado? I would not try to answer that question specifically. Instead, I let the visual language of photography provide the correlation between Avedon and Bennett.

       Just like in face-space, and just like with Avedon, I always try to let my portraits be a window into myself by using someone else's moment in time. What of myself, a twenty-six year old white male from the country, is shown through a portrait of an eighteen-year-old black girl from the city? If every portrait is a cooperation to create, then you see my personality being projected onto her and then manifested through her reaction. It has been said that Sigmund Freud, a pioneer to what would be known as psychology, based most of his theories on his own viewpoints. It is due to ideas such as this for why psychology does not hold the hard science stature, which other fields such as chemistry employ. There is always the subjective area of psychology that accounts for the inability to fully comprehend the mind, a metaphysical concept that can only be discussed and explored through the use of our own minds. That is like a blind person translating an ancient scroll. Our tools can only go so far until we can only continue by guessing.

       It has also been said that a large percentage of people enter the field of psychology only to understand themselves better. How many of these people go on to get a PhD in counseling? So essentially, what started as a curiosity turned into a lifelong journey to help an individual learn about him or herself, culminating by also helping others emotionally.

       My photography could be thought of the same way. It's self-discovery by finding myself in others. Is it egocentric to feel I exist in everyone, or is it the human condition that we really are not too much different after all? We all have the same hopes, dreams, fears, and problems. When something affects one person, we are all affected. We all share the same issues because all share the same tasks and responsibilities of being human.

       In the prologue of his book, "Slapstick," Kurt Vonnegut discusses the central characters one will meet upon reading the prose. And slowly, he finds that every character is an aspect of him. He is the young boy, and he is the young girl. He is the old man. Is he physically all of these people? He is, emotionally, from aspects of his life.

       I was asked if everyone likes the pictures I take of them. Honestly, I don't think so. But at the same time, I also wonder how much of the reasoning is because of someone's insecurities being revealed in the photograph. Am I showing something they are not yet ready to face? Have I used them as my clay to confront my own insecurities? Half of the photos are hyper-realistic. They are lies. But like in fiction, the whole point is to lie so the truth can be found. An unfinished photo is still a lie, but a realized photo has stuck through the difficulties so the truth can bust through. Have I not let some photos have the time and dedication they need in order for the truth to be found? If so, then I have failed both my subject and myself. And then I can accept them not liking their photo. But at the same time, if I cannot find myself in someone's photo, why would I even pick and use it? A realized photo is only the one shown. Those photos have been allowed the dedication for the truth.

       The pursuit of the artistic portrait has been a relatively new occurrence. Through most of my life, I've had little convergence in my different interests. I photographed static scenes, I wrote about my personal humanistic views, and I studied others in psychology. Only in the past two to three years have I watched the interests slowly come together for an interesting hybrid.

       People slowly started creeping into my photography after an encounter with a retired photography professor, my dad's old RV neighbor. I gave him a CD with a handful of images on it for his opinion. He responded positive, but commented that the sparse glimpses of people in them left the photos cold. I took this advice very generously. My confidence was growing in photography. I began to recall the photography which grasped my attention. I realized it was portraiture. So I started stepping out and meeting more people. I found that half the fun in portraiture was the interactions I experienced. The photo became documentation of the event. But the stories carried the weight for me. I started questioning meaning. I knew I eventually wanted to create a huge series of portraits. I just wasn't sure what about. I saw the same focal length and exposure being used. I saw a variety of background colors, but the main difference I wanted in each photo was simply the person. I'm a big believer in psychology over sociology. Sociology can tell you the human statistics of events, but psychology tells you the story for each of these statistics, each human. I wanted to point out the individual inside of a world that groups everyone together in labels.

       My original execution of this idea built on Polaroid portraits, photographing my family to build a photographic network. The idea was nice, but I think it lacked the interactive element. While working on this, I started randomly photographing various people's portraits, and I realized I enjoyed it. I didn't know the point, but it was fun. I have the belief that if I can't have fun while photographing, I should just get my MBA. That way, at least I could make a lot of money while being bored. But life has also taught me that if I follow a passion, it will make sense to me in time and doors will open. If it's not the right thing, I'll instinctively move on. So this is how my Ribbon series began, which I mentioned early on in comparison to Avedon's series of portraits.

       One element that I include when I show these photos is a wooden box wrapped in a print of my studio door. I felt the photo shoots were way too interactive and cooperative for the final prints to be shown in a static environment. So I put hundreds of mini-prints inside the box and give them away in exhibitions in exchange for that person signing the box. That refers back to the tradition of people signing my studio door upon completion of a photo shoot.

       The idea of giving away prints in a show occurred after reading about a photographer who gave away 8"x10" prints he took of the sky during one of his exhibitions (the photographer's name is in my intro to photography textbook, but is thousands of miles away at the moment). It just seems like a good idea and helps break down the barrier between the art and the viewer. Too many times have I witnessed people whispering while viewing art, or being timid and afraid to step too close. I want to engage the viewer and bring them physically into the work. I love the idea of laughter while in a show. I love a casual atmosphere. I could see (or hear, perhaps) techno or rock playing during one of my solo shows. It would bring back the bonding memories of concerts, where formalism was replaced by utter casualness. This sentiment can be found in so many of my influences outside of photography. The writing styles of Kurt Vonnegut or Nick Hornby. The directing by Wes Anderson, Woody Allen, or Zack Braff. And the controlled chaos of DIY rock shows. I've already started the initiation by the nonformal and even at times, chaotic nature of how I shoot portraits. It seems a disservice to then eventually bottle all of that energy when I want to share it with others.

       Diane Arbus once said that the photo was merely a record for something happening. She was interested in that "something" as it happened. She built a whole career off of photographing "freaks." She enjoyed going into their environments. She enjoyed seeing how people outside of the mainstream lived their lives. The photo she took of them was the record of the event that the rest of the world saw, but she carried the context with her in her memory. I feel that is the part she enjoyed the most.

       I identified with the feeling of the photograph being a record of something larger that took place. There is no certain "event" when I photograph people, but they often become one. My quest to bounce my personality off of people while photographing them often entails random music, dancing, jokes, running around and breaking a sweat, or even tossing the camera to the model to photograph me. I don't pose people, I just let them react. And if they are good, they start making me react to what they give back.

       Frank Hamrick asked how my work was similar to Diane Arbus' if she went to where her subjects were. I replied that I bring people into a controlled environment and study their reactions. Same idea, different execution. I think this controlled environment dates back to my days of doing scientific research. I would have a dependent and an independent variable. The independent variables are how you set up the research. For my photography, this would be my consistent use of my studio, an orange backdrop, 1/100 shutter speed, f/4.5 aperture, and a flash. The dependent variable, that which reacts to the controlled stimuli, would be the model.

       The photographs were the result of defining my barriers and then interacting with that space to create something. My favorite photo, which broadly would be the one that best represented the experience, is what I call a Ribbon. This refers back to my elementary school days of running relay races. I always received a ribbon afterwards to show that I participated and/or won. But the true event was the memory of it. The piece of cloth merely showed that the event took place.

       One way in which Diane Arbus and I differ is the context. She kept the context of how her photos transpired to herself. I've embraced the context and show the photos that surround the event of the central photo. This also refers back to the writing field, because these additional photos help create a narrative for how the main photo even came to be.

       In conclusion, this convergence of photography, writing, and psychology helps create work that not only touches people on a visual level, but also appropriately nods to those professions outside the visual arts. It shows that no matter what official title someone may have, they can still exist in a separate field which they may have never even imagined possible. Of course, this is possible because as a human, we really are every other human. Our lives reflect off of others, creating a chain reaction that does not end until everyone has been hit by this interaction. This is what it's like to be human, and this is why I am drawn to the portrait.