Lenscratch will be featuring submitted projects this week…

Kelsey Duff is currently a student of photography. As a young woman, it makes perfect sense that she would be examining the aging process in such an observant way. Though these images are in fact not her and her mother, I find myself thinking about the images as such. It is interesting that photographs of strangers to myself and strangers to each other can bring up some intimate thoughts of family and the inevitable aging process that we all must experience.

Washington born, Arizona raised, photographer Kelsey Duff creates by making mistakes, experimenting, and looking at the world a bit closer. She’s just getting started as a freshman in college, consuming photography classes by the bunch in hopes of one day being a successful photojournalist. The possibilities for Kelsey’s work, at this point seem endless. From out of these worlds’ abstract pieces, brief documentaries, to portraits she seems to have her hands in all of the pots. Not to mention, she plays amongst 35mm film, digital, as well as Polaroid’s. “Photography burst into my life when I least expected it, threw everything I knew out the window, took the reigns and has identified me while giving me a place.”

Young and Old 

This set of photos was born from a portrait prompt in my college level photography class. I decided to play with the concept of creating faceless portraits. I stripped away all individuality, faces, and focused on shapes and shadows. I also stripped away the subject’s clothes, working with a black back drop and a white sheet foreground simplicity played a big role. I focused on time and what it does to the human body by using a young model, 18, and an older model, 65. I became absorbed in wrinkles, stretch marks, and dry patches of skin. I also was very attentive to light, paying close attention to shadows and contrast working to make sure the photographs didn’t have a clinical feel to them. As well as trying my hardest to match the photographs lighting to one another, while racing against the day and the sun. All of these factors came together in the end creating a “new and old”, “past and future”, “then and now”, a “Young & Old” effect.