The Free Portrait Project

In late summer of 2012, I was shooting a roll of black and white film when I ran out of subjects to photograph. Wanting to finish the roll and see my images, I came up with a new plan. I ran over to a friend’s studio in downtown Portland, Oregon armed with a slab of cardboard and a sharpie, and constructed a sign that read “Free Portraits”, and sat on the street corner. Over the next few days, I sat on random street corners around town taking portraits of complete strangers, in exchange for only their name.

In 2013, I was asked to bring the project to a juvenile detention center in Oregon, where I met, and photographed 60 incarcerated men.

A selection of the work was on display at Duplex Gallery in 2014. The full album can be found at: www.thefreeportraitproject.org.