993 Out of Luck. Photograph - Limited Edition of 12

"It’s only been some ten years since I started shooting professionally—mostly fashion; but I felt I had something to say. Maybe it’s about the journey. Perhaps waiting to be a great to celebrate your progress is too late. I’ve always been obsessed with a group of fashion photographers dubbed “The Terrible Three;” you know them well, I’m sure. Chris Von Wangenheim, Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton make up this group that so much inspires my work. I’m fascinated by the controversial ideas that lived in their work in the 70’s and 80’s. “How did they get away with this,” I’ve always wondered. Even today, some of these visuals would never be permitted to be published. But they were raw. And real. Before them, fashion photography was solely about absolute beauty. It was private and exclusive. This group of forward-thinking, renegade artists changed the conversation. They managed to shoot and publish visuals that showed a woman getting shot dead while driving or a nude in an uber prestigious hotel. Today access to that kind of imagery is readily available to us in real life. We live in a voyeuristic world of social media and pornography where anything is a click away; but that creative license would never be granted to be published in a magazine today. Can you imagine what the advertisers would think? This for me has become a dilemma. I feel that freedom of expressing yourself as an artist has become an illusion and the idea of a true artist has died in terms of that raw realness that those great three possessed. In a nutshell, these guys have shifted my style of photography and the way I created a composition on a little canvas through my right eye. My respect for them is unmatched. I never met them, though I wish I had; but they speak to me through their books. It’s probably obvious at this juncture that realness is what drives me most. This is probably why I so love to shoot outdoors. Studios can’t compare to the power of nature. This is where my beloved paradise of Miami comes into play. The 305 inspires my style. It gives me color. Color gives me life. The images that I capture are meant to be snapshots of the moments that I see, as they are. I hope that you see them that way, as well. I hope that they inspire you. I hope you see that I did my best. But my best was never alone. Thank you to all the models, make-up artist, hair stylists, set decorators, art directors and fashion stylists who have been a part of creating these images.