Guise, Summer 2015
A strange part of being a photographer is the volume of photos you accumulate of your former lovers. With this, a piece of my dating history.
New to Los Angeles, I arrived at the precipice of a digital age where connection could be distilled into pixels and swipes. Online dating was becoming a conversation, a curiosity. Could chemistry exist in the absence of presence?
One afternoon, in the spirit of experiment, I downloaded Tinder. That same day I met Todd for a drink. My camera, a constant companion became both a subject and a shield. It was there in my profile and on my dates. Photography became the thread weaving through each encounter, the lens which I sought something real. I began taking portraits of my dates— documenting our encounters.
For one month, I committed. A date nearly every day. Each began with a cup of coffee—some dissolved into golden-hour wanderings, others into second and third chapters. Some faded as quickly as they began. One became something more.
This series is a reflection on the modern gaze, on intimacy in the age of the curated self.
