Masks

I wholeheartedly recommend each of you try something different in your creative process. This series is just that for me. In fear of explaining the photo series too much I will keep the explanation to the following brief phrases:

“masking to hide”
“growth”
“time passing”
“trying to love yourself without having substance to love”

I feel myself trying to remove these masks to be who I am. The only problem is that these masks are perfect ways to hide the insecurities. When I try to take these masks off, I’m unsure of what I see (or how I feel). I try to love myself but I end up reaching through a lack of substance only to find a void or emptiness. Eventually, this void is ready to be filled and rebuilt.

These are the images that followed. I know the images are really weird but whatever, ya know?

The Associated Press team in Gaza is reporting the news as they live it, working quickly — under extremely difficult conditions — to verify and debunk information for AP’s customers around the world. Senior Managing Editor Michael Oreskes lauded their efforts in a recent memo to staff:

It was late Sunday afternoon [July 20] and a brief cease-fire had silenced a raging battle in the Gaza neighborhood of Shijaiyah. Dozens of Palestinians were dead, hundreds wounded and thousands fleeing. In a matter of minutes, the battle would resume.

AP Gaza photographer Hatem Moussa, touring the area, caught sight of someone he knew from Gaza’s Civil Defense who was searching for bodies and followed him into a badly damaged building. From under the rubble came the barely audible sound of a family trapped: A woman crying for help alongside her husband, 7-year-old niece and three dead relatives.

“I’m here under the…