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I found myself inventing backstories about what they might have looked like on another day outside the photographers studio.
As part of my recovery, I began digitally removing them from their original studio setting and then photographing an alternate environment. These places can be physical environments like the woods or the beach as well as imaginary places using handmade emulsions like Van Dyke or Cyanotype. Hand sewn embroidery cloaks that original vulnerable moment. I seek to entice a viewer to get close to perhaps foster a conversation beyond the "Anonymous" title. For me each unique print is an echo of the original, akin to a distant, imagined descendant.
As historian Eric Foner writes, "Who owns history? Everyone and no one, which is why the study of the past is a constantly evolving, never ending journey of discovery.”















