Sometimes the most familiar can be the most mysterious. When COVID-19 forced me to curtail much of my usual photographic activity, I turned a bit inward – physically and metaphorically. Specifically, I started repurposing and reimagining photos that I took in the safety of my backyard (as with the five attached examples), as well as ones that I had taken out the bus or train window on pre-Covid trips to New York City. I would reprint the images, “degrade” and revive them in my kitchen sink, and then rephotograph them, sometimes in layers.
The technique is non-digital and decidedly low-tech, but it allows me to express emotions of loneliness, disassociation, etc. in a cathartic and tactile manner, while hinting at mysterious, open-ended narratives that the viewer is free to fill in as they see fit. Originally, the somewhat ghostly and quasi-apocalyptic tone of the images were undoubtedly a reaction to COVID, yet I continue with the series, exploring all the thoughts, themes and emotions it brings to the surface.
