I'm definitely a project shooter. The first project I began is ongoing, though on hiaitus; it concerns the people we become when we're not at home, and it's on hiaitus until I start travelling alone again (not something I do much of anymore). That's a single-image project: each one stands on its own. I started another one about women at home, and it turned out to be an installation piece — it's own logic went there. That's when I discovered that conceptual project shooting can get expensive! That one had a time constraint because I signed an exhibition contract for it. It was mostly complete at that point, but getting the last pieces and then printing it and mounting it as I imagined it should be was complicated.

My current *active* project has me aiming at flat surfaces in the city I live in. That one, at least, I imagine becoming a cheaper-to-hang installation. I can't set a time constraint on it, as the more work I have the less wandering the city I can do, and I do need to work! Someday I want to start a project I thought of beginning years ago, documenting bank architecture, especially solid-built corner bank buildings of the 19th and earlier 20th century, which could dominate a small town alongside the railroad hotel, if there was one. That's a project that needs leisure time for travel. Maybe when I retire ...

I've never really decided on themes. They've always come to me, sometimes seeded by a first photo, and once in my sleep. And I've never written up what they mean until I've really had to. I like to keep the projects outside of words while I can; I'm always a bit nervous that if I start to think in too many words about them, I will lose the creative process. As a person who works with words for a living (I'm an editor), I love when photography lets me leave them behind!

~ Stephanie