In 2014, I moved from the United States to live in France. I use my camera as a tool to help me understand the world around me. It helps me decipher and adjust to the differences of my new surroundings. Understanding a new culture and language is extraordinarily difficult. In the past, my approach to photography was strictly street, in your face, up close and personal!

Now, I find myself slowly starting to isolate myself from my subjects, with a greater expanse of view. Getting a little more distance from the people I cannot fully communicate with makes me feel a little safer. I noticed that I do not leave my apartment as often as I used to, feeling a little cut off and isolated from the things that I used to do.

In this series of work, I show the solitude and the awesome beauty that I sometimes see from watching “life” pass me by, high in my perch above the streets of Grenoble. Every time I open the shutters on the windows, I never know what to expect to see. It could be sun, rain, or snow. Will I see the mountains, or will they be covered in a shroud of mist?

The distance of my subjects and their anonymity isolate them within a frame full of chaos, complex angles, and shapes. I find them mysterious, different, and fascinating as they scurry about with their lives while I stand there looking down . . . watching . . . dreaming . . . wondering . . . “Who are these people?” As I isolate myself, I ponder this from “A Higher Perspective.”