Inside Out

I began working on “Inside Out” as an excuse to escape. Battling Bipolar Disorder, with its deep depression, and seductive mania I would drive as far as I could from home before tiring, much of the time with no intent of returning. Sometimes I might stay on the road for a couple of days sometimes a few weeks and other times I could travel hundreds of miles only to return right back home that same day. Emotional exhaustion, whether healthy or not still proves to be an essential ingredient in the making of many of these photographs. The trips are a form of therapy where my own state of vulnerability and want to be accepted allow me to sympathise with and photograph the people I meet with honesty, empathy and an intimacy not typically awarded to strangers. Inherently, when photographing strangers there is a suspicion of the other present on both sides of the camera. As a photographer I am soliciting my subjects vulnerability and in return must openly cede my own. As I result I am allowed into people's homes, to share their dinner and rest a night on a spare bed. However, the photographs present a dichotomy. Although they may be created with honest intention they are not factual nor are they intended to be. They ride a line between fantasy and reality never quite falling to either side of that line. The end result is a story of a place and people that do not truly exist outside of these photographs