The Ephemeral Beauty: Capturing What Time Cannot Hold
Ephemeral Beauty:
A question I frequently encounter is why my photography focuses almost exclusively on young people. While the answer feels intuitive to me, I understand the curiosity, as it touches on the core of my artistic vision.
The answer centers on a specific, compelling stage of life: the transition into adulthood. For this reason, my subjects are typically young adults, aged eighteen and over. It’s during this period, I find, that I recognize a particularly pure and fragile form of beauty. This isn’t a beauty that has fully solidified or claimed the body; instead, it exists in a state of becoming—precarious, fleeting, and often still unconsciously held.
It’s distinct from a muscular, sculpted, or intentionally flaunted kind of beauty. In fact, when a very defined physique begins to dominate, asserting itself as the body’s primary language, something feels lost to my eye. Perhaps that sense of unguarded potential gives way to a more deliberate self-presentation. The visual journey shifts, and while it might excite others, it no longer speaks to me with the same resonance. I’m drawn to the moment before that, the moment when the skin might still carry a certain smoothness born of youth, when movements can be awkward or unsure, and are, precisely because of that, deeply authentic.
I’m fascinated when a subject doesn’t yet seem fully aware of their own unique presence or beauty. When they carry the vulnerabilities common to that age, yet through those very fragilities, allow an inner authenticity to surface. It might be a gaze not yet masked by learnt expressions, or a body that hasn’t mastered posing but reveals itself—perhaps unintentionally—in its most sincere form. It’s about capturing the essence of self-discovery as it unfolds visually.
I also value following some individuals over time, photographing them again months or years later. Observing the changes—a new tattoo or piercing, a shift in posture, a different way of inhabiting their body—is compelling. Every mark, every transformation tells a story of passage, conquest, or loss. Comparing these later portraits to that initial, unrepeatable moment I captured—a moment now existing only in the photograph—highlights the ephemeral nature of that specific point in their journey.
Ultimately, I believe each of us is beautiful at some point—a moment in life when that beauty is undeniable, no matter how it’s measured. It has nothing to do with conventional standards, and everything to do with a fleeting convergence of vulnerability and truth. For me, that moment often appears during the early shifts of young adulthood, before certainty sets in, when the self is still open, questioning, and unguarded. With my camera, I try to be there—to recognize and hold on to that quiet truth before it disappears.
