I was going through my hard drive last night and I came across a series of photographs that always make me smile. In 2009 I took a break from SVA and spent a semester studying in Switzerland at L'Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne. Our class was required to complete a two week long workshop during the semester. Within that week we had to realize a project from concept to final product by Thursday and critique the work on Friday.
For this particular workshop I partnered up with the lovely Carolina Grillet to realize our couple portraits. In the beginning we started discussing ideas about family portraiture and how it played a role in American culture. We drew inspiration from American portrait studios and decided to place ourselves into the images as a pair of subjects. Each couple has its unique dynamic that comes to life through body language, expression, and clothing. We knew fashion was going to be an important factor for the images, thus leading us on a thrift store shopping spree. Did anyone know that Switzerland had a Salvation Army too? In fact, Switzerland has some of the best finds when it comes to thrifting. Once we had the concept and clothing chosen, we carefully put together our characters for each couple.
I like the idea of becoming a different character and embodying different attributes to obtain that perception as if I were someone else. This project really inspired my Glasses series that I continue to photograph. Hope you enjoy.
