I was always drawn to photography as a means of hope-- a hope that something will occur in front of the camera to transform the everyday to surreal, a hope that my camera will do something unexpected to surprise my very own eyes, and a hope that these images resulting would transport us viewers (including myself) to new emotional ground. Funny enough, this is an utterly irrational expectation to photography as a format that originates in documentation and journalistic purposes, and I am aware of that.
"Mon" (門) is the Japanese term for "Gate" and is used widely as a term that signifies much more than a simple, tangible gate. It can be used to signify a gateway to some thing, place, or idea that is ambitious to us.
With a gate, we are safe to assume that we can walk into an area, without knowing exactly where we are going. Without seeing the full picture, we are willing to go towards the gate. It symbolizes an ambition or expectation, and sets tension between the environment or idea and anticipator.
That is what I'm attempting with this series. How can I transform the subject and its meaning to something utterly different from what was actually being photographed? How can I make the image feel like a portal to something bigger than what is? And how do I make the viewer have a tingling hope through what they are seeing?
- Ulysses
