Your photographs play with imperceptibility, with people’s faces buried under layers of grain or noise or completely wiped clean. Why this approach, and what are you saying?

I like to break technology and see what’s underneath, and I’m interested in photo editing programs that steal some of the creative power from artists. When you use something like Content Aware Fill in Photoshop on an image, you are making something and not making something at the same time. Something else, this AI that runs on code within the program, also makes these changes with you. You may own the image, but you relied on this technology to help you make it, and so the question is: where does the ownership lie in that act of creation?

I used Content Aware on a bathtub recently, and the output looked totally normal. I could parade it as a normal bathtub, but when you looked at it real close, you recognized that something was off. All the tiny details deep in the background were messed up and the pixels were disjointed. But since the bathtub was white, the difference was too hard to tell from far away. It’s a way of making something tangible that isn’t really there.

Are you thinking about this when you shoot photos?

I never shoot for editing, and I never moodboard. The editing can save you, and I don’t care for that. It feels lazy, because you can just fix your mistakes afterwards. I’ve always been very critical of people’s work, especially mine, and so I try to be more intentional. I primarily shoot on film, and I’m not the type of person that buys seven rolls for a shoot, so my pictures are usually one and done. I have to figure out how to make every shot as close to perfect as possible, so that in the editing, I can make any tweaks I need to. And sometimes I just have fun in the edit and blow out the whites or crush the blacks.

I have a huge aversion to moodboarding. I have the ability to savant-style reference so many things because of how avidly I follow fashion and culture and media in general. I can look at people’s work and think, “Surely I’m not the only person who knows what your references were here?” So if I don’t moodboard, then there’s no way that my work will directly look like someone else’s. 

I like to say that I’d rather make the decision to just not wear something name-brand than to wear something fake. And that’s how I feel about imagining something original versus using a moodboard.

I’ll get into debates with people who say that if you don’t know how to edit your photos in Lightroom or Photoshop, then you aren’t a real photographer. And I’m like, what the fuck? Try telling that to someone from the 1870s.

Right? Every photographer for the last two centuries rolls over in their grave when they hear that. Even when photography first became commercialized, what was editing? There was no editing outside of film development. Not too many photographers were even skilled enough to adjust settings in the dark room. 

A lot of people use digital cameras and edit their photos to look like film, but I usually do the opposite and accentuate the digital nature of film. Instead of slapping on a grainy filter, I sharpen the image a lot. 

For me, photography is about that process of taking an original picture. I love the look of photos from our parents’ upbringing that really feel like they tap into the memory of that event or place. I love when my mom opened a photo album and the effect it had on me as a child. The reason I take photos is because I want children years from now to feel the same type of wonder about our generations’ photography. I’m always wondering what that’s going to look like to them.

How has this approach shaped the themes you explore in your work?

I think in our adolescence and teenage years, we care more about excess, like the flashiness of things. But now that I’m older, I feel like I’ve become a bit more organic. I care less about looking crazy and more about the softness and comfort of things. 

So I’m interested in pairing these two feelings together. I’m enamored by the women on the Upper West Side who go out in these really advanced styles of fashion that look totally insane. But I know they’re probably very comfortable because their outfits are tailored to them, and they only wear that outfit to go to brunch. People like us wouldn't wear that when we’re pumping through the city to get to work, carrying a bunch of bags. So I’ll do photoshoots that play with this duality.

The duality that comes from looking really unique because the uniqueness is part of your skin? How do people react to this?

That’s what’s so weird, is that people just don’t react to anything anymore! I don’t do well with general compliments, but that’s all people can say these days. “You’re so cool.” “I like it.” “I love that aesthetic.” “It’s a vibe.”

I’m like, what the fuck are you talking about? What do you mean? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? 

I don’t think I’ve ever said that in my whole life. And it’s not to be shady. I just literally don’t understand why you’d say that. I know you’re thinking something else, I know that the brain inside your head isn’t just thinking, “It’s a vibe.” 

I can articulate way beyond that. That’s why I open up the dialogue and pose the question, “Why do you think that?” You should tell me what you mean because I don’t know what you mean. I'm giving you the opportunity to show your appreciation for my work. Give bigger descriptions.  That, or you could buy it!

And so, I feel like the world is moving backwards in this way. There’s either no conversation or just conversation that runs in circles, and so we’re not actually moving forward. It’s like how we chill out in Bushwick and all we do is eat and wonder why there’s nothing else to eat. 

Take what will inevitably happen to pride flags. Companies only incorporated them into their branding and whatnot because we were bitching that they weren’t doing it enough. And now we’ve reached a point where we can agree that their misuse of the flag is not okay. It’s obviously so weird and capitalistic of them to use it. So, we’re bitching about how fucked up it is for them to use the flag, which means the average American liberals will catch on sooner or later, and they’ll stop using it. And things will return full circle when we start complaining about how no one uses the pride flag anymore.

So now that I think about it, not only are we not moving forward, we aren’t moving backward either. We’re just dancing a 1, 2 step. We’re not even stagnant, we’re just shuffling our feet around. It’s a silent disco spinning in circles, and the headphones are our own voices yelling in our ears.

How do you find people that can hold real conversation with you, and how do you incorporate them into your work?

I studied photojournalism in college, and my final project was on the one furry on my campus at Florida Atlantic University in the Palm Beach area. His name is Mario Rodriguez and he goes by Bark Dango. He invited me to the annual Florida Furs meetup in South Florida. Honestly, I felt like Andrew Zimmer in Bizarre Foods going to some village in the middle of nowhere, sitting with them and learning about their whole life. It was completely different than what I expected. I felt like my brain was going to fall out because it was just so much information. But I couldn't have gotten that from someone else. Only they could speak on behalf of that and tell me about those experiences and that culture. 

What I’m getting at is that I’m interested in projects that allow me to get close to someone who looks a certain way or speaks certain things that are totally different from anyone else. I see photography as a way of documenting these groups unbeknownst to me, not because they’re otherworldly, but because I can approach these conversations and photoshoots without any structure. I can mold my style around who they are as people, and vice versa, incorporate their style into my own. 

It’s about finding the middle ground between National Geographic and King Kong. I want to use intense, almost avant-garde fashion and photography to build a portrait of a person. I’ll frame their story, their look, their energy in a way that accentuates it. That is my way of being there as a listener and interpreter and as someone who shares my opinion on these people who are really interesting and actually have something to say.