On ‘Youth’

I have always believed that art should imitate life. In my study of photography, the closest thing to imitating life is to document reality. My social reality. My friends, their friends, the random crazies I bump into on a night out are the most interesting subjects to me. This selection of images was taken from an ongoing “Youth” series I have been working on for the past couple years, and features characters from my time in London my sophomore spring and back home in New York. The photographs were done in a wide range of formats — specifically, color film, black-and-white film and digital.

On Chantel

All of my images are portraits. The main idea behind my work is to portray how people interact with the places and spaces they inhabit. I also try to create a visual narrative of a particular moment or event. I did not know many of my subjects personally, but I succeeded in achieving a degree of intimacy with them — enough to become more than just a voyeur or intruder of their space. I became a part of the moment that I captured. My camera was simply a mirror of their experience. It’s something I try to recreate in every photograph I take.

[showcase slug=”youth-a-selection-by-chantel-simpson”]