Jay L

I photograph people - almost exclusively. I am interested in photographing people when they are in two distinct states of being – when in the most public and when in the most intimate of places. I am recently focusing my attention on a place that is at once the most public and the most private, the hotel room. I am also exposing the most private of people. Me.

I use the camera to penetrate people's most intimate space. Through open dialog I try to learn who they are and gain access to what goes on in their head and through this process try to make the camera disappear.

A city is where people gather. The streets, buildings, sites and sights are only background. When I photograph there is a paradox in what I look for - people that are unique to me (and isn't everyone?), and yet universal somehow. The mystery of photography is evident whenever a resulting image, which I know is derived from reality (I was there!), becomes something totally fictional for me through a process I do not understand.

The work is part of an on-going project photographing women in the sanctuary of their home, a place where they can feel confident enough to be themselves, not compelled to act for the camera.

Part of a series "a place of her own", in which women are photographed in their intimate space, ready to forgo their calculated pose for the camera

Part of a series "a place of her own", in which women are photographed in their intimate space, ready to forgo their calculated pose for the camera

This work is from an on-going street photography project I call "touching people" in which I single out "my" people from the flow of the street before they disappear again into the crowd

Cities are usually just a background for the people I am looking for. Can Las Vegas be the same? The symbol of decadence and sin, also the capital of consumerism and entertainment. Who is the background now?

From a series of photographs taken during a week and a half in Manhattan, during July 2009. More of this series can be seen at:
http://www.jayl-photography.com/090710-manhattan-1

Notes on artwork: From a series of photographs taken during a week and a half in Manhattan, during July 2009. More of this series can be seen at:
http://www.jayl-photography.com/090710-manhattan-1