Sample from: “rubble” (ongoing)
No. 1-6
“rubble” Series Preamble: The images in this collection combine aspects of my many interests to survey the remains of the island of Puerto Rico, where my family is from. In many ways, I cannot put into words how I feel about being puertorrican: I am frustrated that I have love for a place so intensely disenfranchised by its political status. I am frustrated by my own isolated relationship with the island as a result of a childhood spent in the US. I am frustrated by the precariousness of my relationships with my own family. And yet I am deeply enamored with the place, its beauty and its contradictions. This is an attempt at capturing my frustrations with the perspective of americans in particular, and visitors who feel at home but also not. The images should come together in a way that reveals a poignant sorrow for the loss of life in the wake of Hurrican Maria, and the political and economic purgatory the people experience.
Image 1 Description: Taken within a collapsed building on the beach of Posa de Las Mujeres.
Image 2 Description: Taken from the window crack of an abandoned building in the capital of San Juan.
Image 3 Description: Image taken on my phone of my mother at the beach.
Image 4 Description: Beach refuse at Posa de Las Mujeres.
Image 5 Description: Taken within a collapsed building on the beach of Posa de Las Mujeres.
Image 6 Description: Taken within a collapsed building on the beach of Posa de Las Mujeres.
Sample from: “Heavenly Drama” (excl. No. 10, from Charcoal Magazine shoot)
No. 7-10
“Heavenly Drama” Series Preamble:
As the child of a pastor, religious imagery has been diffused throughout my life, often with the present-day effect of dull frustration with me. During a summer study-abroad stay in Madrid I started imagining how I could reckon with that. The following images are part of a larger collection (shot in churches throughout Portugal, Spain, and Puerto Rico) of religious-related imagery meant to defuse the tension I have with the Church, and find a certain levity and humor with such stoic objects. I like moving my point and shoots around quickly to create motion blur and thus give the statues and artifacts their own sense of life.
*The 10th image is not a part of this series but is a demonstration of a continuity in this theme- sort of exorcising religion for my personal ends- when I was apart of a magazine at my alma mater Boston University.*
Image 7 Description: Image taken at a cathedral in Spain.
Image 8 Description: Image taken at a cathedral in Spain.
Image 9 Description: Image taken at a church in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico. Image 9 Description: Image taken for a magazine project called, “The Fates.”Mixed sample:
No. 11-16: Uncanny Works (loose project)
No. 17-20: Ipad Effigies/DigiCandy (ongoing project, experimental & aiming to use mixed-media & sculptural techniques)
“Uncanny Works” Series Preamble: I have always found the purpose of photography to be a chance to radically alter our perspectives on human-nature interactions. What if I could make everyday organic objects alien to us, and what if I could complicate our emotional affects towards these things as a result of this new perspective. In this series I wish for viewers to feel love for the colors, sounds, motions, smells, and textures of the living and once-living things we often take for granted. Every one of these images is the result of experimenting with how flash, overexsposure, and motion (both of subject and photographer) can render organic objects, flora, and fauna almost uncanny to a viewer while using as little editing as possible.
Image 11 Description: Flash on a flower. Image 12 Description: Flock of pigeons and feet of tourist. Slightly edited on Lightroom to augment contrast and exposure. Image 13 Description: Flash on inside of a burger. Image 14 Description: Flash on butchering of a guineafowl. Image 15 Description: Flash on flowers and surprise-spider!
“Ipad Effigies/DigiCandy” Series Preamble: While developing as a photographer, the hardest images for me to capture were (and still are) those of other people. We take for granted the compromising positions we put our subjects and don’t consider that the sole reason for some of these pictures is to post on social media. With my iphon and digital cameras i have taken pictures of myself and others in ways that keep their anonymity whilst preserving the memory of these moments. In many ways I wish to advance the mission of my “Uncanny Works” with a destructive editing technique that forces viewers to contend with the false or subjective/fluid presentations of reality we already see in most of our media.
Image 16 Description: Pictures of my body taken on photobooth.Image 17 Description: Edited picture of an ex-Best FriendImage 18 Description: Edited pictures of a field of flowers in Iceland.Image 19 Description: Edited photograph of my best friend. Image 20a. Description: This is an edited photograph of my sister shot on my iphone. Image 20b. Description: Front-view of the printed out image encased in a glass tablet prototype I made out of recycled electronic device parts.Image 20c. Description: Side-view of the prototype.Image 20d. Description: Rear-view of the prototype.Image 21 Description: Photo of me (left) and my friend (right).