"Environs" Portfolio (2005-09)
This was an interesting and exciting image to construct. The warm sun was setting, and I also used my flash equipment to give it that striking crispness and surrealistic charm. The cactus that surrounds the girl in red was in fact very small and ended just beyond the frame. The use of a wider lens made it seem larger and more foreboding as if it could swallow her up. Which was of course my intention and how I furthered that narrative was to include a hand reaching from beyond the frame outstretched towards her. Their fingers touch just slightly as if she is trying to rescue her friend from the snakelike vines that prickle and scratch the skin. I want these images of children in nature to look like their environment has come alive and that they are immersed and entangled in some sort of struggle. This could be suggestive of an inner struggle, one that relates to the tumultuous years between childhood and adulthood that we all must embrace and endure. The image was constructed to awaken the viewer's imagination and ask them to think about a childhood that is complex but also full of wonderment and mystery. The children in the series titled, Environs, act out these narratives and are also engaged in their own imaginative world as I photograph them. I gave them prompts and they went from there, creating and collaborating. The shoots where therefore always a blast for both myself and the children. They loved the attention and opportunity to perform on the stage that the art of the photograph provided them.