Artist Statement

These portraits represent my attempt to capture the pictures that are lost between the pictures that are taken.

In these photographs I have tried to show the subjects when they have nearly stopped caring that the camera and the photographer are there and have consequently allowed more relaxed, trusting and truthful expressions to emerge. The moments I am trying to capture are precious to me both for what they give me - in this case, portraits of each of my children paused between great changes and new identities - and for what they remind me I cannot have – that is, the babies and children they used to be and the adults they are becoming.

The close-ups of my stepdaughter’s face grew out of Sarah’s wondering how she would look frozen in the funny expressions she had lately been mugging in a mirror. Some show her considering – but not expressing - the self she will be next.

In other photos on another day, Sarah created a persona disguised in her own clothes and jewelry and assumed an attitude of detachment, even defiance, in an attempt to corrupt the presumed collusion of subject and photographer to make something predictably beautiful. Our fruitful collaboration required both verbal communication and silence, and the confidence to know when which was needed.

In all of these photos I used the indirect, natural light of autumn and winter to reflect those moments when my subjects approached either complete boredom or total relaxation, the moments one usually misses during the search for something often mistakenly considered more significant.