As a mother and fine art photographer, I watched my
son and his friends play, trying out adult roles. The
boys delighted in costumes, often pretending to be
knights, caped crusaders, cowboys, anything heroic.
My son would say to me, “Mommy I’ll save you from
the bad guys.”
The boys had their noses pressed up against the glass
of adulthood, peering at a world they dreamed of
entering soon. Their superhero avatars could save the
day, and helped them navigate the paradox of being
small in a world that values power. The heroes are
the person they would like to be, or who they want to
imitate, and allow them to experience the future.
Soon, so soon, the boys will grow up, they will join
teams, or get jobs, and the childish costumes with the
fake muscles will stay in the toy box. They will move
on to sports uniforms, or fashion, or ways of dressing
that reflect their chosen tribes. But for a few fleeting
years, they feel like young gods, who want to be seen
and heard, while their imaginations run the world.
And I want to capture them like this forever.
A native of Los Angeles, Erica Martin fell in love with photography when she borrowed her mother’s Brownie film camera as a teenager, and has had a camera in her hand ever since. She studied photography at Hampshire College with Jerome Liebling, at the International Center for Photography in New York, and at the Los Angeles Center for Photography, with Aline Smithson, Amy Arbus, Mary Ellen Mark, Cig Harvey, and Ken Merfeld.
In addition to her photography, she is an environmental attorney, working to prevent pollution, a metalsmith, and the mother of two children. Her work and parenting informs her photography, exploring themes of identity, transformation, and the paradox of human existence captured at a moment in time. Erica photographs people in their surroundings, their rituals and the manifestations of their interior lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment