In Citizen you will meet a former prime minister, a prostitute, my wife, a nun, tribal dancers, famous actors, a now-dead friend, child sex offenders and more. Their titles are given as a way to catalogue and label. It certainly doesn’t sum up all that they are. From the outset, these citizens were never meant to make up a congregation. There is no greater plan, no narrative, no place, no topic that connects them. The portraits are of a broad mix of people I came across over the course of the last 15 years. Many encounters were random; others were the result of a commission. None of the people were actively sought out by me. The series Citizen is simply a collection of images. The only constant is my intent walking into a portrait session; that has always been the same no matter who the subject were, even down to the technical details. I have used the same equipment and film for the last 20 years. The project does have a direct link to my previous book of portraits Chasing Summer – A Journal From A Global Motorcycle Journey. On that journey, I visited 35 or so countries over two and half years. You could place any of those earlier portraits in the context of Citizen and it wouldn’t feel out of place. They are like two chapters of the same book.
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