While most of photographic portfolio can be seen here, I have begun to use photography as a way of exploring questions and ideas through project based photo and video series I create. The same storytelling my grandma inspired has given me a passion to tell stories that help me process ideas of structure, purpose, identity, space, place, beauty, hope, joy, and community. Here are some of the projects that express these stories as I continue to explore.
Urban Beauty
This collection of photos attempts to highlight the beauty of structure and design in civil engineering, especially found in architecture and public works. All photos were captured in Westerville, Ohio and symbolize the beauty of blending the modern with the historical.
This project helped me connect my interests in photography and engineering. It also captures my personal artistic draw to power lines.
Celebrated, Discarded, Overlooked.
This collection of photos attempts to capture the value of people through the noticeable absence of them. While each individual photo shows a different story, collectively they point toward a need to care about one another, whether a stranger or friend. It is important to sit in the tension sometimes as we learn to care deeper for others.
This project helped me connect my interest in photography and continual thought process on homelessness as I wrestle with what my role is at this moment in my life.
This photograph represents the joy of watching your team win a Saturday football game combined with the deliciousness of eating pizza. It also communicates the power of a team.
Line is used as the remotes point to the game. The subject matter is that of experiences I have had watching the Ohio State Buckeyes. The victory is not significant considering Akron competes at a different level and our season has not been good so far, but nonetheless the win is appreciated and celebrated by fans.
This photo shows the life of someone who eats a lot of pizza. It also captures the way that cardboard use adds up quickly. Though cardboard is recyclable, pizza often leaves grease in boxes so they cannot always be recycled. These boxes quickly are obtained and then discarded.
Value is shown in the varying light from the foreground to the background at the top of this photo. The saturation/color was decreased to add to the discarded feeling.
The message/narrative is that we discard a lot in life, not just trash, but also ideas and unfortunately people.
This photo shows the sad nature of homelessness and communicates the reality and tension of daily encounters with those in need or those posing as such. Driving by those with signs is an everyday occurrence because we have trained ourselves to overlook them.
Value is used to communicate darkness and sadness. The saturation/color was removed to add to the somber feeling.
The message/narrative is that as we discard pizza boxes and overlook people, we forget our humanity. We avoid eye contact to avoid the sinking feeling of the call to action and the call to help. The sign is made using one of the pizza boxes from the discard pile to further emphasize the way that things and people are discarded and overlooked.
Passing Time
I chose this space to recapture a story I’ve told before in a single image. This project altered the way I thought about leaves on the ground. Suddenly rather than being a pile to be shuffled underfoot, they became a link to one another in the grander pattern of my image. Through the use of passing vehicles, time was altered and the story came to life. Normally in my photography, I try and focus on the subject matter I have chosen and I deliberately avoid distractions like passing cars. In this case, cars became part of the subject and help to tell the story of the passing of time, not only during taking these photos, but since the church was built. The narrative includes the step into the joiner as shown in the photo of my shoe. The small gaps in the joiner can also be seen as full of meaning as we think about the way our brains fill in patterns or as a way of walking through the space.
Meander
My entire life has been lived in suburban Columbus and many days were spent within a .803 acre plot of land as I was educated at home. As I began attending my local career center in high school, my daily bus rides began building a desire to explore and words of poetry slowly seeped from my mind. Senior year, with a driver’s license in hand and keys in the ignition, free exploration was within reach.
This longing to explore is not new but fueled by years of closeup nature photography. From the young age of 7, I was intrigued by photography’s ability to capture the world around me using unique angles and senses of scale. I began to carry my family’s point and shoot camera everywhere. Nature found in my family’s backyard was my frequent subject and this fascination has only continued beyond property lines.
“Meander” was birthed from my relationship with exploring the land around me. This project attempts to capture my passion for photography and exploration as a living experience through video. As a commuting college student, driving takes me across cities and towns. Land is something I am familiar with passing at a distance, but my desire to create draws me closer and asks the question, “Where do details reveal hidden beauty?”
Windowlight
Windows are all around us. They provide light and opportunities to behold beauty in the everyday. Classes, like windows, shed light on various topics and provide opportunities to gain knowledge and understanding of our world. The power of natural light has been well documented through science and medicine and is something I notice as I go to class and study in various spaces on campus. Windows, like classes, can play an important role in helping me learn better.
Buildings can provide new ways to behold beauty or can obstruct beauty that already exists. A historic example of this can been seen in New York’s Grand Central Station, which long stood as a beacon of light and glory through the lovely architecture and sun that shone through the windows. Unfortunately, due to the construction of taller buildings, the light has been obscured. The right to natural light used to be protected by the historical doctrine of “ancient lights,” but like the light it once protected, this law has been taken away. If used correctly, buildings, windows, and education can provide meaning and a sense of purpose and place in this world. Can miseducation be used to obscure meaning and purpose?
Windowlight came to me as I sat in class one day gazing through a window admiring the delightful outdoors. As a frequent daydreamer, I found myself listening to my professor while pondering the beauty of windows and imagining the possibilities of seeing through each and every window on Otterbein’s campus. These photos represent a small segment of the opportunities to see and behold places of beauty and knowledge at Otterbein. Windowlight is an inquiry into education and the power of light. How can learning about beauty enhance our understanding of the world and our vocation? How does the shifting nature of education empower or eclipse the ability to behold knowledge and beauty?
Hold on to Hope — The Scatter Joy Project
Mental health is important, but often a hidden part of our lives.
There is strength in your story. I personally have struggled with anxiety and depression and it’s scary when your own head is broken.
We have to look for hope, reach out to others, and be vulnerable. I’ve heard stories of friends whose battle is ongoing, those who have attempted suicide, and someone I knew passed away in 2019.
I only took 48 photos at the event because I wasn’t there as a photographer, but as a person. Will you join me in scattering joy?
Gloria: A Worship Community
Gloria is a community, but not one that makes sense in the traditional idea of church community in our modern understanding. This is not a group connected to a singular church denomination, body, or fellowship. This is bigger than those concepts and boxes.
This family of people exists despite that and in part with the purpose of being beyond that. Gloria is simply a gathering of professing Christians who want to worship God together. It’s not about the space that we gather in or the local church we belong to, but the common idea of experiencing hope and healing through worshiping God and recognizing the beauty of His character.
Gloria meets monthly in Central Ohio at various locations (from barns to parking lots to churches to event spaces to homes). It’s a space for anyone to come and join their voice and praise. There’s time before and after the music to connect with others for the first time or again for the dozenth. I don’t see most of these people too often, but there’s a community here unlike some places I’ve even been frequently.