Photographer Canbra Hodsdon has created a series on family, Epic Personas, using staged tableaux, each celebrating a different family member, elevating them through pose and humor. It’s a wonderful way to consider those we love, each portrait reflecting Canbra’s interpretation of their personas. Canbra currently has work in the 39th National Juried Photography Exhibition at the Larson Gallery in Yakima, WA running through April 18th, 2015.

Canbra is an award-winning East Coast based photographer originally from Waterville, ME. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design and received her Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Dublin Biennial in 2014. When she’s not photographing, she is gardening, skateboarding, walking her cat, or planning her next scuba adventure.

EPIC Personas

This body of work is comprised of a series of portraits of my immediate and extended family, including my parents, grandmother, and close friends. I use my memories of each person as a guide for my photographs. I begin by interviewing and collaborating with the subject to create the environment, wardrobe, and stance that best portrays each person. While the individual staging is different for each subject, I use a set formula to produce each image.My goal for this work is to depict these persons in a manner that creates a larger-than-life character by highlighting what I know and love about each person. I also aspire to portray the person in a slightly idiosyncratic or comical light, so as to acknowledge and challenge their own mortality. By using a specific compositional formula, I seek to present the individual as an emphasized version of themselves while striving to capture the viewer’s attention and curiosity, as well as challenge their sense of reality.