I would categorize it as a snapshot. Snapshots are interesting because they enter into almost a hyper-reality for both subject and photographer. The subject is un-posed, allowing natural mannerisms to come out among familiar company. The intimacy of a snapshot cannot be overstated. The snapshot for the photographer is like furniture for the architect.
It becomes a radical distillation of their idiosyncratic approach and style. There is not the time nor space to compose a masterwork. This is the moment where intuition and imagination sneak in, split second decision-making revealing far more than traditional portraiture.
There’s something surreal about this photograph, with no clear pictorial plane. Her bulb eyes do not allow the viewer to engage her as a human subject, she is somehow other. The photo is in black and white film, developed in a janky darkroom I made in a bathroom in the same basement.
—Alden Rose ‘14