#courtney coles

Every season, RPD changes its background image and features a new work from a photographer. Information on all of our photographers can be found on the Contributing Artists page. For Autumn 2015, our background image comes to us from photographer Courtney Coles who found RPD via twitter! Below, Courtney tells us how she got into photography and shares some of her other work with us.

My parents were my introduction to photography. Amateurs who enjoyed documenting the lives they shared with their children, every family vacation was either filmed with their old VHS camcorder, captured on my mother’s Polaroid camera or various disposable cameras. As I got older, I got into the habit of getting disposable cameras for class field trips. After a while, I started saving up money just to get cameras to use for my everyday life at school. When my 14th birthday came around, my parents saw that I was serious about photography and bought me my first digital point and shoot that year for Christmas. And, in short, that’s how I’m here. I’m a documentary film photographer. I’m the daughter of two humans who just wanted to remember everything.

A reoccurring theme in my work, aside from self-reflections, self-portraits and portraits of my friends and family, is photographs of interiors- mainly windows, bedrooms and bathrooms. I’m constantly trying to define and dissect “home” and that is why a good portion of my archive is of various spaces that are part of a physical home.

I spend a lot of time indoors. Even as a child, I was never one to go outside and play. I always wanted to read a book in my room or take a bath while listening to music or dream of an alternate life while looking outside windows. The images used here are photographs that were created in the midst of chaos. They calmed me through the storm.

One thing I am intentional about is the use of film when creating images. Though I am capable of using a digital camera, the love and attention to detail is something I’m more aware of when using a film camera. I could go into great detail of how I’m in love with the process, but what I feel like most people forget to mention is that it is all subjective.

Growing up terrifies me. I’m a few weeks shy of turning 26 and I’m still trying to find my home. Photographing the journey has helped me hold it together.