I've always been interested in that moment when the shutter opens. The way light moves through the room, the way someone settles into a pose when they forget everything around them. That's usually where a great photograph begins.
I don't let the image be defined by categories: portrait, glamour, figure study - those labels are usually made by others after the fact. In the moment, I see light, form, gesture, while listening to what all of it is trying to say.
Photographs can take you to another time, another place. You can live the illusion of a simpler time in a frozen moment - the world that might have been and, if you squint your eyes just enough, might be again.
A camera can change the atmosphere. People can become aware of themselves, self-conscious. The camera can also draw out something else - that special quality the subject may not have seen in themselves before. That is when something magical happens.
After enough time, you stop chasing the right photograph. You begin to wait for the right reason, the right moment to open the shutter again. Sometimes it's the right idea, sometimes it's the right light, and sometimes it's the person right in front of you.
