Between Strangers

2014–2016

Before I had the nerve to photograph people candidly on the street, I asked.

There was something about certain strangers that would stop me in my tracks—something in their presence, their energy, their face. I didn’t always know what it was. Sometimes I saw something I recognized. Sometimes it was something I wished I had.

I was often drawn to people the world already seemed to notice—those who carried a quiet confidence, who met the gaze without flinching. At the time, it felt like instinct. But I’ve since wondered how much of that instinct was inherited. What we find compelling is rarely neutral. It’s shaped by what we’ve been taught to admire, to praise, to pursue. I don’t carry shame about that. But I do carry the questions. And I try to keep them close.

When someone agreed, it became a quiet collaboration. We’d step into a pocket of stillness, just long enough to let something real rise to the surface. In that moment, both of us let go of whatever came before and whatever came after. We simply met.

Looking back, this was the threshold. These portraits taught me how to build trust in seconds, how to read the space between expressions, how to see without looking away. Convergence would later carry these lessons into the chaos of the street—but this is where I first learned how to see a person.