Elsewhere

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with feeling like I belong in this world. Elsewhere is a documentation of this feeling through photographs of women in small town scenes. I aim to create a cinematic magic in these mundane settings where one might not expect to find it. The spaces create an ambiguous, psychological world that blurs reality with fiction and suggests multiple narratives. Each photograph portrays a moment between moments, one not normally highlighted nor explicitly described. The subjects’ existence in the spaces is recognizable but their frozen stances turn these familiar and usually transitory settings into a sort of suspended reality. Although the photographs were taken in the American South, the places could be everywhere and nowhere.

washed up

searching

vacancy

new in town

getaway

I choose to photograph strangers to invite an element of chance into the work. No picture can be recreated as I will likely never see these women again. Trust is needed for these collaborations to take place; the women have agency over the outcome of each photo but they are ultimately placing their image in my hands. Because I have an emotional distance from the women, the pictures communicate only a slight sense of who they really are. They are caught paused in a transition, seemingly waiting for something, about to physically be elsewhere. They embody a sense of isolation and their facial expressions and postures are reserved – quiet yet powerful. Each character is a protagonist in her own story. Even though the women are physically present in the pictures, they seem to be somewhere else mentally, disconnected from the real world. I strangely identify with them without knowing much more than their names. They inspire me with their ownership of position in the frame and beyond.

innocence

duality

sunset lanes

put on a show

reflections

When viewed as a collective series, these women come together to form a community. They share in their experience of detachment and face it jointly in a world called Elsewhere, without ever having met each other. This world is one of possibility on the near horizon. There are signs of other human life in the photos but no additional people shown. Even if they can’t see it, the subjects are not alone in their situations. Frozen at a pivotal moment in time, the women are looking towards something that is not visible in the frame, amplifying photography’s muteness and stillness. Their contemplative gazes give rise to mystery and a potential yet to be discovered. Elsewhere is a place where its citizens feel at odds with reality but find hope in reckoning with this circumstance together.