Shadow of Purity addresses the history of how women have been documented, specifically through the photographic image, and how this subjectivity continuously shapes the way we understand and inhabit our own sexuality and self-image. A society that profits as a capitalistic patriarchy has created a dissonance that forces women to see themselves as both subject and object. These portraits engage how deeply these inherited views become internalized, influencing not only how women are perceived but how we have come to perceive ourselves.

Originally inspired by E.J. Bellocq’s Storyville Portraits, the decision to use the historical large-format photographic medium becomes critical in slowing my process, exposing this static tension. Shooting 4x5 requires precise intention, creating a space where both photographer and subject must embrace the act of intimate, and at times uneasy, creation. This slowness allows me to contemplate the power dynamics embedded in photographing, and simultaneously between the viewer and the subject.

This body of work does not seek to resolve this conflict but simply to remain within it. It is an exploration of the unstable position between inherited ways of seeing and the ongoing effort to define oneself beyond them. There is so much uncertainty and possibility in this in-between space; this body of work reframes the photographic experience as one in which perception can be questioned, disrupted, and perhaps reimagined.