Photo Essay

Ever since I was a child, I've always wanted to live in a city. Growing up in a suburb, diversity was difficult to find. Milwaukee was the closest thing to the antithesis of my childhood surroundings. I'd often venture to Milwaukee as a young teenager, but the visits were short, and they left me curious about the city.

I had always felt alienated in the suburbs, especially during my experimental years as a teenager. The city appeared offered acceptance and people even stranger than myself. Now that I live in Milwaukee, I walk the streets, socialize with the inhabitants, and brave the weather. Winter has caused my dislike for the city of Milwaukee to increase.

Over the past few years, Milwaukee has been experiencing a vast amount of deconstruction. The promise of reconstruction is what has caused so much alteration in the first place, but I've found that I can no longer stand the city. Rather than focus on the culture, I decided to highlight the desolation of the city. It sounds like an oxymoron, and it is. The irony of isolation in a city is what appealed to me.

I could never stand to photograph landscapes, but something about the ugliness of reconstruction appealed to me. I did not want people to appear in the photos, save for one photo, where the subjects are far away, almost unrecognizable. This is what it feels like to walk the streets to me. The subjects are so obviously present that their essences is disguised by the brutality of the city streets.