You also seem to be quite skilled at using your photography skills to play with
focus, and strategically blur elements with in your photo. Do you always plan
which elements you want blurred and what is it about this effect that you like
so much?
I think a lot of the blur comes from the fact that I shoot quite a bit with flash, and
often with moving subjects. For my older black and white work, I would use a flash
and drag the shutter. This gave a nice effect that the subject would be tack sharp,
and the background blurry. I like it because it gives the photos an uneasy feelinghaving energy, motion, and vigor.
You discuss the idea of the “self” in your photography. Can you tell us what this
idea means in your work?
I am quite fascinated with the idea of the "Presentation of Self" - by sociologist
Erving Goffman. Pretty much the idea is that in everyday life- we are like actors in
a play. We want others to have a certain impression of us- which we show through
our behaviors. This includes the way we walk, talk, and much of the material
things we possess. Especially in materialistic societies- we try to show our identity
through the clothes we wear, the phone we use, and the car we drive.
I like to personally think that our identities shouldn't be derived from these
materialistic things. Rather, they should come from a much deeper and personal
space- from our souls.
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