“Art is more intimate than sex.”

Anyone can lay down and have sex. Few people know how to make love and even fewer know what it is to make art. The idea that in the creation of art, someone would lend their time, energy, space, and emotions to mold into a finite moment that one can hold in their hands as a print is profound. In order to make art, though, there must first be a pure and genuine connection to something or someone; the act of falling in love.

After being subjected to a tumultuous and abusive marriage for almost a decade, it would have been easy for me to lose sight of love. Finding out that my then wife had been having multiple affairs, it became genuinely difficult to even look at her. All the love and affection I felt toward her had left me and I was no longer capable of finding trust or inspiration in her. She had become increasingly physically violent and verbally abusive as I retreated into myself in silence and refused to occupy the same room as her on most days. Much in the same way that matter can neither be created or destroyed, “Love” is something of a peculiar force. Even in its apparent absence around us, it is ever present inside of us. Despite being deeply hurt by my experience with my partner at the time, I was fascinated with the idea of falling in love. I wanted to know what it would be like to look at someone and feel joy and warmth, but I was terrified of getting close to anyone. I wanted no physical contact with anyone for any reason and the thought of being intimate in any way with another human frightened me to my core. Then there came that inevitable moment where I’d fall in love again. It was a feeling that swept over me both gently and with force and lasted for just a moment. During this period in my life, I was photographing fashion editorials for small independent brands and the occasional fine art piece with a model when I met a woman who would change the way I made my pictures. Our time together felt more like a cosmic dance than a photography session. We played off each other’s movements, words, and emotions to create some of the first photographs that I felt intimately connected with. I had asked her before we met to come without makeup as I wanted her to hold a print when we were finished and feel seen just as she was, however, I hadn’t anticipated such honesty in her eyes. These photographs didn't feel like I was making pictures of another pretty model, but rather that we were creating sculptures and abstract paintings together with everything that we had felt up to that moment. My camera then became a tool to foster a different type of love. We worked slowly and carefully together through each roll of film that day with each quiet click of the shutter feeling more like our breathing had synced than a mechanical movement inside of a metal and glass box. Projected onto little strips of plastic and silver, she shared pieces of herself with me and taught me trust. It was during these moments, fractions of a second at a time, that I learned to become open to vulnerability and softness. This body of work as an exploration in intimacy, sensitivity, and healing titled “Falling” is dedicated to her and every woman who shared their feelings, time, emotions, and light with me.