I began taking self-portraits about 10 years ago using my film camera. It was primarily out of necessity instead of some self obsession. I love taking portraits and there were times when there was no one to photograph except myself. This then morphed into a new animal when I acquired my first digital camera in 2005. I continued to use film as I do with all of my fine art but that year I descended into the real world where the loss of my innocence was a daily occurrence and my ability to cope with the constant changes of my life was next to unbearable at certain moments. In those moments I picked up my digital camera and began to photograph. Less than a year later the camera broke and I was still processing a lot of heavy information and I discovered that photographing was and has always been a way for me to understand myself and my world. So I picked up the next digital camera I had: the one on my phone. I never considered this exploration of my layers as produced in cell phone imagery to ever make its way anywhere beyond my computer. As I continued to photograph I realized that I had something that was unique. The photographs I was taking were different than a regular digital camera and very different than my film work considering all my film work is black and white and generally printed in a turn of the century process. It is overall a much looser method. No processing other than a download. I have left each photo as it is and was photographed in the moment it happened.
This show is in conjunction with "What's Happening Now: A Cell Phone Photography Project" that I have coproduced with Susan Todd-Raque for Atlanta Celebrates Photography.
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