“When I am in public, I watch people going about their daily routines alone. I wonder about the lives they lead, wonder how they experience the world around them, and how they make meaning of it. I spend time inventing stories for them: narratives of isolation, of questioning and searching, of desire, and of confusion. The images in Other People’s Clothes are a product of my exploration of private moments of expectation, a visual expression of my experiences stepping into the shoes of the types of people I see daily.
Each constructed photograph in the series is a scene that begins with an outfit or piece of clothing (either bought, found, or borrowed), then a person that I imagine filling those clothes, and finally a location where that person can play out a silent moment alone. This moment is the time right before something changes, the holding in of a breath and waiting, the preparing of oneself for what is to come.
Though I am the physical subject of these images, they are not traditional self-portraits. They are portraits of people I have never met but with whom I feel familiar, as well as documents of the process wherein I try on the transitional moments of others’ lives to better understand my own.”
Website: www.calebcolephoto.com
