Gallatin Arts Festival 2023

Photography has always been my way of attempting to make sense of the idea of growing up. Ever since I was a kid, I have collected anything I could find that could be used as evidence of the present moment: papers, stickers, tickets, journal entries. I saved any memorabilia I could in order to hang on to the past. I refused to let go because I refused to grow up. This obsession with documentation is what drew me to the dreamy, nostalgic aesthetic of analog photography. Through it I learned to let go of my obsession with the set idea that we must grow up, and instead, created a new understanding of the term that resonates with me. Within my photograph Boyhood, I wanted to capture what it meant to grow up from the male perspective, based on my observations of the relationship between my father and my stepbrothers. In the years since my stepbrothers entered our lives, I have watched my father live the childhood he never had, proving that the idea of “boyhood” and growing up never ends if we do not want it to.