C. BAY MILIN

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After years of attempting to move from film to a more digital photo practice, I have recently begun to sense a need to slow down and allow time to reflect more. This sense of adjusting pace and finding a harmony between mediums in the making of the work, allows me to really see the why behind the desire to make an image at all. My photographs become investigations of the past, and also celebrations of those moments where nothing at all may seem to be occurring, but an entire universe of a shared revelry quietly expands.

In my newer work I am seeing loose patterns forming, where my personal family memories are intermingling with the present sense of autonomy. This is a reckoning; this is a deconstruction, and making more work make more sense in this way, is a reclamation of all versions of the Self.

A successful image to me embodies the tone of a gleeful secret whispered to a confidant, or an appreciation of how we move and evolve through time. The results sometimes become sanctuaries or positive anchors to latch on to; exuberant, sometimes mournful collective reminders of our unspoken connections to memories, to places, and to one another.

I provide the viewer a permission to linger longer; to extend an opportunity for their initial observation to wander at leisure, and without limit. From private enclaves to public spaces, these images are promises of attainable wonderment in the seemingly mundane.

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