Ghost Series, 2012

In 2010, my estranged aunt left me many boxes of family heirlooms and mementos that she had kept over the years. I’ve always had a complicated and distant relationship with this side of the family. When my aunt died, I realized that I was actually mourning the end of a connection that I was never able to make in the first place.

When I finally began to sift through everything, I was particularly drawn to a number of daguerreotypes of my relatives from the nineteenth century. Daguerreotypes have the disarming quality of allowing us to see our own reflection within the image, and it was through these images that I finally felt a connection.

In this series, I have photographed myself, carefully examining the fragile bond I have with my own family. In their world I am a hazy and distorted ghost, while in my world, they are imprisoned in a single plate of silver. I’m staring into the past, a world that I can’t ever reach. They stare out into the future, unable to take part in it. Yet both of us exist in the other’s world.