One of the subjects in my photography that I get the most questions about is the startling number of shots of shoes, and feet, in my Flickr stream — specifically, the large number of shots of rock star shoes on stage, and random teenager shoes standing in line outside concert venues. I take a lot of close-ups of hands, too, but it’s the shoes that always garner questions.
The answer, in part, is this: I’m absolutely fascinated by the way that people stand — there’s a lot you can read about people in the way they hold themselves, and taking pictures of hands and feet is how I try to puzzle out certain things about human behavior, I suppose. Capture that moment of movement on stage, when one foot is planted and the other is starting to leap or twitch or push off from the stage, and try to figure out what it means. Capture the way a guitarist tunes between songs and maybe understand something about the music.
And to be perfectly honest, sometimes rock stars just wear really kick-ass shoes.
As for why I take pictures of my own feet, it’s a way of saying hello world hi here i am i was here i exist. My month-long project for May is going to be photos of the day’s primary shoes; a month of reminding myself that I exist.
brand new kind of photography 