What did you learn while figuring out different ways to approach people?

Because I was so afraid, my perspective was off when it came to what I thought people would say. As if anyone was going to curse me out—that’s what I thought would happen! People aren’t really like that. It could happen, but I learned to just speak to people and ask them plainly. I made the decision to not photograph people without their permission, or without letting them know it was about to happen. I learned that people are way more open than I thought. I guess the camera isn’t as threatening as I thought, either. Also, some people are really searching for recognition, and saying, “Hi, I see you and I want to take a photograph of you,” is an interesting form of social recognition.

Your portraits often capture a person in the midst of movement. The subjects seem so alive and it reminds me of the feeling I get when I finish a really good novel: that the characters are going to continue on with their lives after I close the book. Have you developed any techniques for the kind of portraiture you do?

The technique to achieve that sort of look or feeling is giving the subject a small gesture or motion to do. Sometimes I say something like, “Can you run your fingers through your hair,” and I have them do it multiple times. I say, “Do it slowly,” and if there’s a point at which it looks really, really comfortable, I ask them to hold that, or I snap the photograph in the middle of the action once I see the range of motion they have. For the street photographs, I approach the interaction really lightly. I’ll be like, “Hey, can I take your photograph?” and then try my best to not linger. In that case, it’s just what they give me in that moment, then I say thank you and move on. It’s kind of romantic for me. I feel like people only look a certain way for a short period of time, even if they’re not actively changing their appearance.

On your website, you have a selection of photographs under the title Sepia. They feel like they’re from another time. How did you decide to work on that project, and how did you create the vintage feel for these shots?

Sepia is one of my favorite sets because it started out of a complete mistake. It was one of my early portrait sessions that I was really excited about. I don’t know what happened. I think I was nervous and didn’t have the light right or something, and the photographs just came out dark and weird. I didn’t know what to do, but because I was so excited about the subject and I really wanted those photos to live, I messed with them as much as I could, like, OK, they’re really dark, I’ll just take these photos further than I would ever have taken them and see what happens. That’s how I stumbled across the sepia [effect]—Oh, I actually think this looks kinda nice—it still maintains the person’s image in the way I was hoping to. It just wasn’t, you know, how I had imagined it. After that, I decided to apply that same look to other images.

What had you wanted them to look like?

Straight portraits of people with a colored background, and the background color was just totally lost.

That’s what’s so noticeable about them—that they don’t have any color.

It showed me that there is no unsalvageable image, and also not to be so attached to what would be “right”—like, I wanted them to look “right” and when I couldn’t get them to do that…in the past, I think I would have discarded the image, but that’s the beautiful thing about film—it’s possible to get details back, and it’s possible to get light back. I didn’t want to let go of those photos, and I’m so glad they came out of that “mistake.”

You were born in Kenya, and you’re working on a project about your travels there, right?

Yeah, I was there a few weeks ago and it was amazing. I got to reconnect with my family as an adult, by myself—I’d never traveled there alone before. It was wonderful to be there and photograph everybody. The photographic project I had in mind was about my grandfather’s house, so I did that; I’m currently editing the photographs. I’ll be sending some back to him. There were two goals: to photograph my family and have nice portraits of them, and to document the broader-scale development issue that’s happening in Kenya, and all over Africa, where after colonialism and the West’s influence, countries like Kenya are now taking infrastructure and aid and new development from Asia, especially China and Japan. I wanted to document the changes that are happening in my grandfather’s neighborhood. He used to live in this idyllic, quiet summer house—every family has a plot of, like, an acre and a half, and my mom’s whole family grew up there. She’s the eldest, and they lived in that house for 40 years.

Now the neighborhood has totally changed. They razed the houses and built large high-rise apartments. [My grandfather’s] house is the last house there because he wanted to stay. But that just shows that the quiet, suburban family setting they had is in the past. Everyone’s grown up. It’s a new generation’s turn to grow up there, and they’re going to be growing up in apartments.

July’s theme is Slow Motion, and one thing I and lots of people I know struggle with is that feeling when you think your work isn’t going well or quickly enough. Do you ever feel like that?

I do feel like that quite often, especially being around very prolific and creative people. Sometimes I think, I’ve been working on this for so long, and I haven’t even started shooting yet—this is taking forever! I’m still getting comfortable with that part of my process, and I’m starting to realize that everyone works differently. There are some places where I do need to push forward, but in other areas, that incubation period, it’s for a reason—just figuring out what I’m really trying to do. It’s important to take that time; it makes the end product better.

Once, on vacation with my family, I was with my dad and my sister, and we were walking on the beach. There was a period where I was like, I’m just gonna walk a little slower. We were all walking together, and I was lagging behind, and they were both like, “Hurry up, come on, what are you doing?” But I decided, I’m going to walk at my own pace. I was young, so that seemed like a novel idea to me at the time! As I was walking around, I had more time to look around, look at the sand, look at the water, and I found these beautiful shells. At that moment, I realized that if I walk at my own pace, I discover the things that are meant for me on that road. We could all be walking in the same direction, and there’s something there for each of us along the way. If I hurried along at someone else’s pace, I’d miss what’s for me. If I take my time and really follow what I’m drawn to, I can find something really special that isn’t for everyone else. ♦