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I was born
in 1981 in Rome, Georgia, a small city built in the foothills of the
Appalachian Mountain range. When I was five, we moved from Cedartown,
where my father and mother had met and fell in love, to the small
suburban town of Powder Springs, where they raised me and have lived in
or around ever since. From an early age, and into my University
education, I had an interest in reading, writing and storytelling as a
primary way of understanding and communicating with others. I studied
photojournalism and magazine writing at the University of Georgia, and
later at the Savannah College of Art and Design (Atlanta campus) I
studied fine art photography before moving into the MFA photography
program at Georgia State University. In between education goals, I
worked as a photographer for the The Daily Commercial (Leesburg, Fla.),
The Charlotte Sun (Port Charlotte, Fla.), The Atlanta Journal
Constitution, and Emory University.
I primarily categorize myself as a conceptual documentary photographer,
because I feel I don’t fall within the traditional concepts of how
documentary is defined and regarded. I tend to focus on typology,
portraiture, and sociological issues, though I don’t limit myself and
make photographs with a variety of visions. I am primarily
interested in how appearance reflects identity; how gender, sexuality,
and societal roles are related; and how people develop and perceive
belief and class systems based on gender and sexual identities. The
subject and nature of my work is primarily based in Georgia and the
Southeastern region of the United States, with an emphasis on Southern
LGBTQIA culture.
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