My photographs are about sex, race and masculinity. I deal with those subjects in my work because I’m obsessed with them in life. I’m drawn to the moments from my past that are difficult and painful. I find it cathartic to make photographs about them.

All of these images are based on past relationships; from ex-lovers to strangers I met on porches. I take those relationships and put them into narratives that are staged but at the same time feel true. I think it’s important to recognize that the fictional can often be the best road to communicating very genuine experiences and predicaments. Film as a form of communication could be more powerful then a single photograph but the images on the screen pass to quickly to truly be processed. In the motionless act of viewing a photograph, you’re able to view as long as you choose.

It’s important that these scenes use all the tools that film and photography have in common—manipulation of time and space, lighting, pose, the gaze—to offer you moments that are not explained but still somehow understood.