Faces of Silence
A black-backdrop portrait study of twelve strangers, each photographed in complete silence for one hour.
Client
Personal Project
Category
Portrait
Location
Studio Series, New York
Year
2025
The story
Faces of Silence began with a simple question: what does a person look like when they stop performing? Twelve volunteers — none of them models — sat with me in the studio for an hour each, with no music, no small talk and no direction beyond 'stay'.
The first twenty minutes of every sitting produced polite, guarded frames. Then something always shifted. Shoulders dropped. Eyes settled. The portraits in this series all come from the back half of each hour, when the silence had done its work and the camera had become furniture.
The series was exhibited at a SoHo gallery in spring 2025 and three of the portraits were acquired for a private collection. It remains the project that taught me the most about patience as a creative tool.
Behind the scenes
One light, one reflector, one chair. Every portrait was made with the same 85mm lens at f/2 so that the only variable in the series is the person.
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