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Public Project
Vanishing Point
Copyright Sebastian Collett 2024
Updated May 2015
Topics Aging, Black and White, Candid, Documentary, Gay, Personal, Photojournalism, Portraiture, School/College, Street, Teens

"Vanishing Point" probes memory and desire through encounters with people at pivotal points in life.

Growing up gay in a small college town in Ohio, the life I desired seemed always just out of reach. Twenty years later, a grown man yet still full of longing, I returned for my high school reunion.

Photography became a tool for time travel. Immersed in the landscape of my youth, I scouted for "stand-ins" for characters from my past. Archetypal figures appeared: those I had wanted, or wanted to be, and those I was afraid to become.  In their eyes, I encountered my alternate selves. As they met my gaze, I saw them look forward to their own aging with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. 

We stood at a crossroads "“ each of us perched on the cusp of becoming the other. I watched for moments of transition, when the subject seemed on the verge of becoming or vanishing.  I photograph to describe these liminal states "“ evoking the eternal quest to situate the self in time.

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