These photographs were made during nightly walks by myself, as I struggled to balance the tension between my need for pleasure, mystery, longing, comfort, and security.

When I began sharing this work, I also began fielding questions from well-meaning friends that resembled those I might receive at the onset of a new love affair, namely, “Are you being safe?”

I tell them “yes" as shorthand for the truth: that safety is an illusion and outside of my control, but I feel free and very much alive.

CERTAIN GRASPING is a love affair with seeing and feeling what is obscured by shadow—a rekindling of my desire for desire itself.

HOUSE RIDDLED is a 32-photograph series created to bridge the gap between my family’s memory and my own lived experience.

Collective memory has long been a point of tension in my family. I tend to be the one who misremembers the facts of our shared life, which feels isolating in a family of three. My rightful claim to my childhood feels dubious because I remember, but in a very different way.

My dad died two weeks before Christmas in 1987. It was tragic, and unfortunately, a very public spectacle. I was five years old.

My mom, sister, and I moved five times in the five years surrounding his death. I went to five elementary schools, three of which I attended during kindergarten and first grade. We went into hiding following my dad’s funeral.

These are the facts my family agrees on—documented, corroborated, relevant—but for me, deficient. Perhaps because facts do not accurately reflect the feral experience of trauma. Facts cannot offer comfort to a grieving child. Hence, they serve little purpose in matters I consider worth remembering.

Using photography, I am able to show what exists between the facts—namely, the emotions that fill every corner of home after a traumatic event. After all, it’s these emotions, not facts, that remain more vividly, impacting how we live and relate decades later. HOUSE RIDDLED has given me a more holistic understanding of my family’s communal grief than any newspaper article from that night has ever offered.

On view // March 28 - June 2, 2024

PCNW North Gallery Wing
900 12th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122
(main gallery, halfway up the staircase)

Price and size inquiries, please click here.

This is a collection of photographs taken between 2009 and 2017, focused on the quiet ambiance, silhouettes and negative space that occurs when the lights, haze and energy fall together in a split second.

All of my live music photos are of bands that I have either toured with, am friends with or have personally commissioned me to shoot their sets for a period of time. Since I don’t shoot locally for publication, the pool of bands I work with is much smaller than a local working music photographer. The privilege of shooting my way is spending more time with the same people in different locations and for the entire set, rather than just the first three songs.

My dear friend, Eric Anderson (of Seattle’s Cataldo), loves photography as much as I do and is always nerding out with me about film and time spent in the darkroom. We also realized we both share a deep love of music photography from the 60s and 70s. So when he called me up and asked if I wanted to come to Oakland while he was recording his last album, Literally Main Street, I knew exactly which approach I was going to take to document this process.

These photos were taken over 5 days in May 2018 at the Tiny Telephone in Oakland. While this studio is unique in its possession of daylight in the main room, I still opted for a handful each of Delta Ilford 3200 and Kodak TMAX 3200, both for the speed, latitude and the grain. I brought along my Leica M240 for some digital shots to offer a pop of color but by and large we both gravitated toward the black and white film images. The very last in this series ended up being the cover photo for the new LP.

It was a particularly special week being able to reconnect with my old friend, owner of Tiny Telephone/producer/musician, John Vanderslice, having only known me over the years as a roadie rather than a photographer. The man is made of equal parts chaos and sunshine and he is never, ever dull. Being able to witness old friends and new collaborating together gave me some life-as-full-circle feelings that heavily influenced how I sequenced these images: quiet listening, to inside jokes between takes, to shared cigarettes, to an epic/sleep-inducing Chinese food lunch. It always astounds me how the co-creation of music allows for such immediate intimacy in the span of a week, a closeness rivaled only by one’s own family and usually formed over years.

These photographs were taken during a year where I, amidst a time of personal upheaval and excessive travel, wanted desperately to disappear. I thought by hiding behind my camera and shifting my focus toward Ra Ra Riot, forgetting about my shambolic personal life and watching them experience Japan for the first time, I could pretend (at least momentarily) I didn’t exist.

10 years on, all I can see in these images are the very things I was trying to hide about myself during that long summer. This is a photo essay about touring with a band but it is also a collection of self-portraits: a bit underexposed, out of focus, full of color, deeply tactile and with no small amount of x-ray damage. No linear narrative or clear intention. Me in 2010: laughably unaware that I could no more hide my inner chaos from my tour mates than my very own camera.

These film photographs were taken in Hiroshima, Yokohama, Tokyo and Kyoto over 10 days in July 2010, by none other than my little Pentax K1000.

This is a collection of photographs taken between 2010 and 2019, focused on the expressiveness and geometry of bodies interacting with the audience, fellow bandmates, instruments, lights and the stage itself.

All of my live music photos are of bands that I have either toured with, am friends with or have personally commissioned me to shoot their sets for a period of time. Since I don’t shoot locally for publication, the pool of bands I work with is much smaller than a local working music photographer. The privilege of shooting my way is spending more time with the same people in different locations and for the entire set, rather than just the first three songs.

Recently it became the burden of every individual to stop the spread of Covid-19 through physical isolation, hand washing, and keeping our fingers off our faces. But touch and proximity are hard-wired into our genes. We aren't only defying millions of years of evolution - we’re being asked to reprogram a lifetime of innate habits around the very thing that kept us alive after we were born. Touch is necessary. It’s wild. It is a part of us, though the degree of need varies from person to person. 

I’ve spent these last few weeks at home contemplating my relationship to both touch and proximity, and looking at this new collection of portraits within this theme. Though I require equal amounts of touch and bodily autonomy, I seek out physical closeness through my lens, be it between others or with themselves. I am a voyeur for what other people reach out to and connect with, even if it’s only their own face. It brings me joy to witness physical affection, regardless of my involvement.

Looking at this portrait series, I now see these hands and heads and mouths as both comfort and security, and vectors for disease transmission. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to unsee this. Maybe this is another lesson in human complexity, similar to how we can hurt most those we love most. Our bodies, which can create and sustain life, are also capable of contributing to their very end. What a beautiful and painful gift - a multifaceted risky business that, once we are on the other side of this pandemic, I will absolutely continue to participate in. But for now, I am definitely staying home.

I could do nothing else for the rest of my life but take portraits of my friends and know that one lifetime is not enough. There is too much to mine in two eyes. The immensity is palpable. I often wonder if there are facets of humanity not meant to be explored or captured. The process is equal parts joy and pain and wholly my raison d'être. These are the many faces I love.

These is a collection of photographs taken between 2009 and 2019, focused on the variety of facial expressions artists convey during their sets. I’ve always loved watching musicians lose themselves and their sense of place in front of an audience, no matter how large.

All of my live music photos are of bands that I have either toured with, am friends with or have personally commissioned me to shoot their sets for a period of time. Since I don’t shoot locally for publication, the pool of bands I work with is much smaller than a local working music photographer. The privilege of shooting my way is spending more time with the same people in different locations and for the entire set, rather than just the first three songs.

This is a collection of photographs taken between 2010 and 2018, focused on the energy and action of the live shows I’ve had the privilege of shooting.

All of my live music photos are of bands that I have either toured with, am friends with or have personally commissioned me to shoot their sets for a period of time. Since I don’t shoot locally for publication, the pool of bands I work with is much smaller than a local working music photographer. The privilege of shooting my way is spending more time with the same people in different locations and for the entire set, rather than just the first three songs.

“LITERALLY MAIN STREET”

Commissioned by Eric Anderson (Cataldo).

Design by Jordan Butcher & Christopher Harrell.

Photography by Rachel Demy.

Shot at Tiny Telephone (Oakland, CA) in 2018 on Kodak TMAX 3200.

Released September 27, 2019.

PURCHASE

“Proxima B b/w Filler”

Commissioned by Benjamin Gibbard.

Design by Christopher Possanza.

Photography by Rachel Demy.

Shot at Thalia Hall (Chicago, IL) on January 24, 2020.

Released May 29, 2020 on Barsuk Records.

“LIVE IN KYOTO 2010”

Commissioned by Ra Ra Riot.

Photography by Rachel Demy.

Shot at KBS Hall (Kyoto, Japan) in 2010 on Fuji Neopan 1600.

Released July 28, 2020.

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