Soft Light, Loud City
a moment of luminance within the chaos
Miami during Art Basel week is unlike any other place. The city becomes a stage and everyone rushes to play a part. I came in hopes of inspiration and to escape the wind and freezing weather back in Asbury, but the art feels oddly flat. I have not seen much that seems conceived by a human mind wrestling with emotional thought or feeling. Instead there is an overflow of AI driven concepts and machine made interactives that cannot hold your attention for more than a few seconds before you forget they ever existed. The stories feel lost in the absence of emotion, and any sense of originality disappears with them.
Everywhere I turn I see the same things. Neon, words spelled backwards, glitter poured over canvases and goopy resin pretending to be profound. It all starts to blend together and says absolutely nothing.
And the people. Oh the people. They are not looking at the art as much as they are performing for it. Everyone is peacocking through the fairs, posing, circling, making sure they are seen. It is dazzling in theory and exhausting in practice. Instead of feeling creatively charged, I feel like I am watching the same loop again and again. Maybe it is the traffic, the impossible parking, or the really bad work pretending to be art. Neon, glitter and goop do not equal vision no matter how confidently they are displayed
My Miami friends, colleagues and fellow creators have outgrown my lens and most are simply laying low. They have no interest in being photographed unless there is a sponsor or a glam team involved. And while I am in town, I am grateful for the few paid jobs I have had. But once money enters the picture the assignment becomes painfully obvious. I am hired help, and they do not want my inspiration. They want a picture. Nothing more. Nothing that asks for emotion or story or artistry. And with what they are willing to pay, I certainly am not going to be able to invest in any of the art.
So when a friend’s son’s ex drifted through the door for a visit, something unexpected sparked. In a week where nothing had inspired me, I suddenly spotted a willing focus. I asked if she would step in front of my lens. No production. No styling. No plan. Only one light, a quiet backyard, the humid Miami night, and the hope that something worthwhile might unfold
I gave her a little direction and spun a loose back story to set a mood. She pulled a sheet from the laundry, I poured her a glass of wine, and we let the scene breathe until a story began to take shape on its own. I am not a boudoir, beauty or nude photographer. I am someone who looks for story mixed with truth. And in that small moment something finally shifted. As she trusted my lens, we made images that feel a bit editorial, a bit cinematic, and completely aligned with the stories I like to tell. Some are real, but most begin as fantasies that dance in my mind until someone or something or someplace inspires me to click the shutter
These photographs feel like they could live on a gallery wall. They feel like the start of a new genre for me, something raw and intimate, something that sits between portrait, performance and quiet revelation.
After days of being overwhelmed by too much art and too little soul, I think I’ve finally realized that inspiration comes from within, and that some light and a living, breathing subject are enough.
