we all have a right to our history...

For me, a photograph is an artifact of a moment. That moment is the piece of art, and the artist is God. I see photographs as artifacts of a moment. A moment is not simply a random slice of time. Time becomes a moment when it is observed, and that moment is a piece of art, ‘ready-made.’ Behind the camera, I am a witness, framing a moment. Repetitive in method and typology, my work aims to reveal Truth. Everyone has a fingerprint; no two are the same.

“Hands of Trinidad” is a conceptual portrait project and a love letter to the town of Trinidad, Colorado. Inspired by the archive of The Aultman Studio, a father-son photography studio that opened in 1890. A quick Google search revealed over 50,000 faces staring back at me. Unlike a painting, a photo captures a moment as it happens, linking it to something that really occurred. I was reminded of the power of the photograph, written with light from a moment in time. But I was left with the question, 'What about now?'

I opened my own pop-up portrait studio down the street from where the project began. Every first Friday of the month, I walked downstairs from my apartment to take black and white analog photos, just like they did in 1890.

The pop-up led to pop-ins. I was invited into people’s homes, to help on their cattle drives, and to share their family’s Sunday Sauce. These short conversations between portraits became a ceremony of oral history. Meeting someone new lets me rediscover myself. Nothing quite compares to the process of taking a portrait. With film, there are no sneak previews. I don't see the images until I develop them in my sink, and my subjects don't see them until they are printed for the show. What was captured in the camera is what appears on the print—an exact representation of who they were in that fleeting moment. No retouching; perfection is not the goal.

Unlike a painting, a photo captures the magic of being made with the moment, not just of the moment. It is intimately linked to something real. I was reminded of the power of the photograph, created with light from a moment in time.

We used to wait weeks to see prints. The anticipation made the experience special. With the invention of the digital camera, we no longer had to wait. Photographs became instantaneous but are now often forgotten on cell phones or in the cloud. We took the waiting time for granted when we had it, and now forgetting is just as instantaneous.