Left Behind

My work asks questions about how cultural perspectives dominate our experience of reality.  Growing up as a girl in an Anabaptist, conservative, midwest, family - has given me a certain paradigm to which I saw the world - and still do.  I grew up in a small town far enough away from our congregation that it stood out to me and others. I also struggled with deciding for myself what is truth; especially when it came to the major life questions contained within and around a church-focused family. We belonged to a congregation that made me feel (unfortunately) like an outsider; being a shy child contributed to these feelings. When I started asking big life and faith questions, I did not feel heard. As an adult I am using photography as a form of communication, a point at which to open up dialogue to my unanswered questions. I put myself in both the vantage point of active participant and observer. These images bring up pivotal moments and choices in my life. Even though these stories are personal, they are universal.

The title LEFT BEHIND refers to those lives that are not part of the rapture. Also, it touches on the remnants that provide evidence of a life after someone passes. I began photographing my family as a graduate student at Yale. The bulk of these images were made between 2002-2005.

I am attracted to the already existing pristine, saccharine pastel interiors of the upper-middle-class home. I work with large format cameras and professional lighting to capture as much detail as possible in the settings as well as the details of a person’s face such as a bruise on an eyebrow.  With the photographs in LEFT BEHIND I was interested in how religious values naturally become everyday routine activities.  For an outsider these moments may seem extreme or odd yet from an insider’s view they feel normal. It’s not until later do I look back at what didn’t stick for me and question “why not?”.

In PAUSE I use a similar stylistic and conceptual approach in making the images.  However, this time I am exploring what it means to be a daughter and examine the complex dramas that reveal themselves in relationships with the father and other male figures of significance.  Many times, especially with this group of images, my inspirations come from my own life experiences.  I became more interested in perspective, forcing the viewer to be a more active participant in the seemingly mundane moments that shaped my life. By recreating these events, it allows me to see myself through other people.  I ask myself, “What did that event look like to someone else?” or “How was the other person affected who witnessed the event?” Most of these photographs were created in 2006. The themes I am exploring are the search for acceptance and love; asking if I’m good enough to be loved by you - just as I am - with all my perfect imperfections.