friends+lovers, explores loss and desire, mental illness, and radical vulnerability through intimacy with a queer lens. Intimate portraits of strangers, friends, and friends that have become family. Images are made using a 4x5” view camera. Each sitting was an excuse to reconnect and spend time with someone I have loved and cared for, created during a time of intense loneliness and isolation, when I very much wanted to die. Each sitting evoked within me the full range human experience through heartache, joy, and connection. Each sitting connected me more with my chosen kin and community, and .

I was reminded how wonderful and terrible and temporary and fleeting all of this is. At the end of each session, I wished for death to come for me a little bit less. Each image is evidence of an intimate moment shared between the photographer, camera, and sitter.

Evidence that this happened.
That we were here.

And that it mattered.

* This chapter of friends+lovers, was made possible through the generous support of the art collective, Spiderweb Salon. Images were created in Denton, TX and Santa Fe, NM during artist retreat and performance for “#PLEASED.”