For me, photography
began as a hobby. I would go out
into the street and capture what I saw — it was all very raw and direct. Quite quickly, I fell totally in love with the art form. But within a few years, the COVID pandemic came crashing down on all of us. Suddenly, street photography became much more difficult. No one was out and about enjoying life in public.
So, I
began experimenting with my cameras. I took the process of image making in an entirely new direction — rather than capture something realistically, I tried to push the boundaries of how I could express a deeper reality through different processes.
I created a few series in this vein, and I gave each one a hashtag:
#Illusion,
#CrossingBoundaries, and
#SavingFace.
But as I looked over this work again and again, something kept jumping out at me. These treat photography like painting. Not unlike a painter, the process I use layers and blends colour, both directly and indirectly.
That’s when I came up with
#CameraAsBrushThis hashtag brings my work into a single space on social media platforms. But it also does something else, something that radically changes how I interact with others online.
It gives people a chance to contribute to the idea of #CameraAsBrush. Rather than simply sitting back and taking in, the hashtag is a tool that encourages participation.
And if this hashtag really catches on, soon it will become something much larger than my practice. It will become a community of photographers taking their art to this new place. There, we can all have the chance to talk about what we are trying out. We can share what we’ve learned and ask questions. In short, we can develop this style
together.