This work was created in the same vein as my series Latitude. I work intuitively with my camera within my space, responding to environmental and instinctual stimuli. I chase after traces of myself, in the form of memories and emotions, and there is a resulting disconnect between my conscious mind and what appears in the image. Because of this, I often find a strange emotional detachment from the work at the time of creation. My camera often seems to understand me better than I understand myself. 

My camera is my favourite travel companion - it’s a way to point to things for myself and say “look at that” or “this is important”. Images are banked immediately after they are taken and are not seen until they are later developed, when I return home. In this way, the photographs I take with this camera immediately become memories, based on the associations I have with them and the nature in which they are taken.  

At the end of August 2012, I went by myself to New York city. I had been there before but never completely on my own, always with others to show me maps, to lead me around, to meet back up with me later. When you’re alone in a big city sometimes you feel invisible, you’re so immersed in your own mind. These pieces are a kind of journal, a composite of emotion, memory, and images that in some way reflect my experience traveling alone to the big city.

- o.j., 2014