Natalie was the valedictorian for the 2008 Tumbler Ridge Senior Secondary grad class, and dressed in a stunning pink dress. At nearly the end of the evening, about an hour into the dance, when there were only a dozen people left in the room. “Come with me,” I said. “I don’t know how to act in front of a camera.” she said. “Don’t worry,” said I. “You’ll do fine.

What I wanted to say, but couldn’t over the music, and couldn’t because I was too caught up in the moment, was that I didn’t want her to act. The whole idea behind what I try and do, even in five minutes backstage at a grad, is capture the essence of who a person is. And all that “look fierce” or “get angry” is not so much for the looking fierce or angry (although sometimes that’s pretty cool, too), it is for the moments right after, once you’ve tried to look fierce, when you relax, and laugh, and bite your lower lip as you wonder how that looked. Those are the moments that I’m looking for. The unguarded moments. The un-acted moments.

That’s why I like spending more time, not less, with the people I’m photographing. Because with time comes trust. With time, people overcome that need, that desire to “act” and start simply to be.