JENNIFER McCLURE: Laws of Silence

Photograph © Jennifer McClure

Photograph © Jennifer McClure

Photograph © Jennifer McClure

EA: Define your point of view. Are you ever trying to tell a story?
 

Jennifer McClure: I read that Thomas Roma likens the making of photographs to Robert Frost's idea of making a poem: "A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness, a lovesickness." My pictures come from that emotional space of longing, of wishing for things that never were and might never be. I don't know if I'm telling a story as much as trying to find a way out. I can only see a feeling clearly when I disarm and immobilize it, pin it to the wall and examine it with the others.
 

EA: What were your first subjects when you began?
 

Jennifer McClure: The first series I did was about nine years ago. I had just gotten clean and sober but I wasn't really comfortable with the idea. I put an ad in the Village Voice to photograph substance abusers. We spent a lot of time together, and I got to ask them the questions I was afraid to ask of myself. We had different circumstances but the same emotions and desires and needs, the same flawed coping mechanisms. This is what fascinates me, whether I am photographing myself or others: how we come to be the people we are, and how we choose to handle the lots we are given.  

 Photograph © Jennifer McClure 

The photographs of Jennifer McClure are being shown in an exhibition at the Drift Gallery until July 20th, 2014, along with photographers: Aline Smithson, Bear Kirkpatrick, Christa Blackwood, Cig Harvey, Noah David Bau, Amy Elkins, and Alec Von Bargen.

Portraits in Contemporary Photography

Exhibition through July 20th, 2014

The Drift Gallery, Portsmouth, NH

JenniferMcClure.com