In April I shot my first assignment for Colloquy. It’s the alumni magazine for Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. I shoot people, I shoot places, I love shooting people in places. The location itself is a subject, but people respond strongest when another human being is present in the photo. Photography creates tangible memories, two-dimensional representations of the past. As an editorial photographer, my role is to have something to say about that memory and make a connection for the reader. If I can stop the reader from flipping from page to page and get them to read the first two sentences of the article after looking at the photograph, then I’ve done my job.

The first portraits I did for the issue were of Jason Kaufman and Kevin Lewis. The article is about how they used Facebook to figure our whether or not we choose our friends based on common interests or form interests based on the friendship itself. While Jason and Kevin attempted to answer this question, their findings were a little more complex than they initially anticipated. I hold a friend’s interest, taste, or idea much more validly than discovering it from another source. Isn’t that a good thing? Go here if you’d like to read the full article.

Kevin Lewis

Jason Kaufman

The second article I shot for was about The Tea Party in the Obama era. I went in to photograph for the story about the book “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism” which was written by Vanessa Williamson and Theda Skocpol. I was handed a copy after the shoot was over, but due to my hectic schedule and already extensive book reading list, I have yet to read it. But I will!