A Statement on Authorship, Representation & Ethics

As a concerned photographer working much of my career as an international photojournalist—and as a white-skinned American cis-gender male, descendent of settler colonizers, living on stolen land, and working out of the northern hemisphere for the arrogant Western culture—I have built my entire career traveling to remote (for me) and exotic (for me) places, working in the world’s most marginalized (by western standards) and under-represented (in western media) communities.

I recognize my position and privilege in unjust systems that are designed to benefit people of my description. I commit to working in ways and creating art, film, and photography that help dismantle those systems.

I strive for appropriate authorship in the stories I pursue. I will understand how my own story intersects with the bigger story and be transparent about my position, perspective, and process. I do not pursue projects when my story is not in some way part of the story to tell.

I understand that truthful representation is not the same as factual objectivity, and that honesty and my intentions to uncover truth is limited by my biases and assumptions, what I can witness and understand, and is incomplete.

My inherited circumstances amplify my power to do good or do harm with photography. I will use my ancestral privilege to create space to work collaboratively with those I film and photograph, promoting diversity and supporting their agency and sovereignty in their stories.

The complexity and diversity of human experience is the natural order. Racism, White supremacy and fragility, misogyny, xenophobia, Western chauvinism, religious zealotry, and other forms of dangerous superiorities threaten this natural order through repression, exclusion, systemic ignorance, and overt hatred. As a photographer with all the privileges cited above, I have the opportunity as well as the obligation to witness beauty, wonder, and good, but also inequity, injustice, and evil. My goal as an artist working in non-fiction mediums is to consciously recognize and vitalize the world I want to live in while honoring the truths of those who trust me to help with their stories.

I am still learning and strive to continue to raise my awareness. All of my work comes from a place of Love and Service.