And Along Came Effy
In this series, we are entranced by Effy through appearance and action as we navigate into her world. We see who she is, her nocturnal habits, and the colorful people she meets. We are brought to various city and urban dwellings and we travel with the vagabond that is Effy. However, we are also exposed to the various people she interacts with and their smoking, drinking, and drug influences on her.
I created this series to continue my passion for story telling through photographs. I had been working on this story for a while now in the form of a novel. However, it didn't occur to me until I started making this series that another reason I created it was to have a "tableau" series that brought up addiction awareness. This series poses as a story that alerts viewers on current issues shaping our world such as cigarette smoking that causes cancer, legalization and management of Marijuana, unnecessary usage and over-doses of Heroin, and other malevolent drug use especially among our youth.
Character
Character is a series about identity, understanding, and viewing ourselves within reality and dream. It is about understanding our personalities, our motives, and our strengths and realizing how similar we are to iconic characters in fiction.
I created this series because I knew a lot of people who inspired me to fulfill story telling. The people I knew, though they were fantastic models, they were people who reminded me of characters I had read about in literature. So I wanted to see them in some kind of in-between place. Some place in-between what's true and what's incorrect. What's real and what's fantasy.
A Fictional Dream
A "Fictional Dream" being one dream of many dreams out there, is an artistic-photo book that showcases my photo series "Character" and "And Along Came Effy." It is a 4"x4" square book that unfolds into a network of mosaic pages that feature square and triangular photographs selected from the two series. Next to each image is a caption, written in narrative voice, that explains the image vividly.
I created this project by utilizing book making skills I had learned. I cut down a series of drawing paper into 13 individual 8"x8" square pages. Each square was folded by each point to create a Hungarian fold. Then the 13 pages were glued together and the structure was formed.
With 4"x6" prints of selected photographs, I cut up square and triangular pieces to be placed where they fit appropriately within the book's structure. I used a cardboard "jig" to cut out proper measurements, then I taped every piece down where it needed to go. The text was placed onto the paper using an ink transfer pen.
I made this book for a class assignment. It wasn't until after I did it that everyone was impressed with the work. Then I realized why. I had been taught photographers develop phonebooks. A phonebook is a book of images from a photographer's series or a multitude of their works. So an art book is a typical book with alterations to its structure and content. A child's three dimensional pop-up book is an example. "A Fictional Dream" consists both forms: a photo book and an art book. So this is an artistic-photo book.
I wanted this book more for the sake of stories and story telling. When you read a book and become enthralled by the narrative you reach a nirvana known as the Fictional Dream. Writers will reach it when they write. So I wanted to try and showcase my fictional dream in an interesting book. Thus "A Fictional Dream" is what you have from me. Something personal, something true, something from the heart.