Portrait Experiments In Silhouette
These images are some early portrait experiments that turned into a bit of an obsession and eventually to my gallery “On White.” The idea stems from a last-minute photo session on my birthday about 7 years ago. Working with a beautiful and talented young model we had such a great time and connected so quickly that we were able to experiment and capture a really wide range of looks, and also some ideas that started to seeds that have grown over the years after our session together.
That obsession was how powerful a silhouette can be in a photo. I was enamored with the idea that it could be aesthetically, beautiful, and very personal. It struck me that you could identify these individuals quickly with nothing but their silhouette if you knew them, and it really sparked the idea of storytelling within portraiture, and playing with absence, and of course, shadow, because if you know me, you know I love a good, dark shadow.
Over the next few years, when the opportunity came about, I would work with different clients and talent to grab a couple of frames here and there to continue experimenting with this idea. A year or so later, it became a major part of my first exhibition here in Madrid: “Without Context.” And it culminated, without me even thinking about it intentionally, in my first Music Video that I shot last year.
Not to belabor the point, or become overly philosophical about this, but I love how suggestive the silhouette can be, and I love how it can be seen, and felt by different people in very different ways because it truly requires, that we bring all of our imagination in the absence of the actual details of the persons, face, skin clothing, etc. I just find this idea very fascinating.
It's possible, that this will find its way into a more focused personal project, my initial thought would be to title it: “Lit!”, a not-so-subtle play on lighting also lit in its sense of being cool.
