I believe the process of photography walks the fence between control and the uncontrollable. Much in life is uncontrollable, and with photography, we exert a modicum of control, documenting the beauty and chaos in the world. Yet, even when photographing, anything can happen, and no matter how well you know your craft, you can’t account for how the unexpected will show up in your photos. Ultimately, taking a photo captures a precise moment of our ever-changing existence and fixes it to our consciousness.

My current work explores how photography both gestures to the world-in-flux that exists beyond the photo’s frame and how it defamiliarizes everyday objects.

During the pandemic lockdown, I became fascinated by birds. As our freedom of movement was put on hold, I found their freedom captivating. I was drawn to photographing birds and exploring the tension between a bird’s flight in the “real” world and its static image. The stillness of the photo gestures to the movement surrounding it, to energy, to the ebb and flow of life. It speaks to another dimension beyond the 2D photo and to different dimensions of life—ones that we may not see by only looking at the surface of things.

Surfaces tell a story, but they can also be deceiving because nothing in the world is quite what it seems. Human brains are pattern-seekers, creating expectations for how we perceive the world. For humans, seeing through to the heart of things is impossible, but using photography to defamiliarize objects makes an attempt at “truth.” Photos can say more about what’s in our brains than they do about the photographed objects themselves. I hope that my photos break our habitual notions, thereby dismantling grand narratives that prescribe rigid ways to be in the world. To this end, I play with distortion and unusual perspectives to make objects or plants look like human body parts and bodies look like non-human forms, which not only shatters preconceptions, but also makes the statement that humans, as much as we like to believe ourselves separate, are an integral part of the natural world.