Environmental Portraiture has developed into a large portion of my work.
I discover people and their essence through the camera’s lens.
The camera creates a passageway, a conduit, to a person’s soul via his eyes.
For that reason, portraits have a sense of intimacy, vulnerability and trust that invites us in.
Each portrait is a moment in time and special unto itself, never to be duplicated.
“You have a camera that’s part of your hands, part of your eyes.
And then you go inside, without judging anything. You don’t come
with your American culture and presume, that’s good, that’s bad,
that’s black, that’s white…you come because you must come, it’s
your way of life. You’re there to see, hear, listen, understand, integrate.
I believe that if a photograph doesn’t make a man as big as he really is,
it’s better not to photograph. The people I shoot reveal from within
their dignity and their strength to be alive.”
Sebastio Salgado
