Stories

About This Series

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”

As You Like It, William Shakespeare

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”

Mark Twain

I consider everyone I meet to be a character involved in a greater narrative; I too, act out my role designated to me by nature—laughing, crying, speaking, and sighing, as if compelled by some sort of directorial cue. We each have an individual story that connects to another and another and so on. We live and react to life, sometimes guided by logical thought, cause and effect, and at other times by the gut of irrationality, our basic animal instincts. We come and go, sharing our stories by a mere glimpse of the eyes or a single hello.

It is easier to pretend I have control.

Photography allows me to become the storyteller. With one click of the shutter I inject my humor into the daily routine of these “characters” and permanently decide their fate. I can create the stage with my subjects depicting scenes from my mind. The images are purposefully odd, and oddly realistic. At the first glimpse they appear to be normal, everyday scenes. Upon closer inspection, however, one discovers the character involved is blindly acting on some sort of obsession that does not fit the initial interpretation of what is occurring. The viewer watches, realizing the possibility to play that part as well (just swap out one fixation for another), and thus the character and narrator, viewer and subject, share the same role.