NATHAN. 2012
From 2010-2018, I worked at a photography studio for a large corporation. I regularly bring my lunch in several mason jars and most days I can be heard clanking down the hallway. Food is a central piece in my life and to our culture. Much of my conceptual artistic process entails thinking about and documenting ideas that everyone can identify with and understand. For a good part of a month, I photographed lunchtime portraits of my coworkers and their lunches. To me it was an exploration of the person, the food they brought, and how they brought it to work. Very often I am drawn to the environment just as much as the person. For this series of images, however, I wanted to simplify and make the portrait completely about the person and their food. I built a very basic white set for every person to sit. It was a tight space and a bit uncomfortable for the subject as there was no way out except to crawl under the table or have me move it. I did this intentionally so that the sitter would feel as if they were the subject of a study. There are 71 Lunch Portraits in the finished series.
