I have happened on a rare occurrence: an empty escalator in a popular Las Vegas casino. I hear the echoes of impatient feet climbing up the ramp. The top of the moving staircase glows with vestiges of anticipation left by gamblers with stuffed wallets and big dreams who once ascended here. Now the walls surrounding me sigh in a fleeting moment of privacy and rest. This space has all the intricacies and nuances of a human face, aged by time and the countless individuals that have moved through its public passageway. In the eclipse of a second, I snap the hallway’s portrait before it has time to blink back at me. My visual passion lies with public spaces devoid of people, spaces that are created specifically for people but where people are the only thing absent. I used to believe that these sites were empty when I shot them, but now I understand that they are alive with a collective energy that thousands have left—and that these spaces hold one vast memory of the people who passed through them. As the memory and the energy within the space fuse together, the life of the place is born, the face emerges. Portraits are not just of people, but of places people inhabit. Occupants of a casino, hospital or playground leave their imprint on the space much like a footprint in the sand before the tide rushes in. The tide inevitably rolls out but the grains of sand remember the pressure of toes bearing down on them. Similarly, the cumulative impression of individuals in public spaces gives life to walls, floors and ceilings. Spaces breathe and think. About a year ago I began carrying a small Russian spy camera (known affectionately as the “Lomo”) with me at all times so that I could capture public spaces in their rare moments of “emptiness.” Often I would return to a space when I was assured of its vacancy in order to get a better sense of who the space was. Have you ever felt like you were intruding on a space? Visit a school playground at 6 am on a Saturday or a tropical hotel pool on a rainy day. You are not invited. Is it that public spaces need times of solitude? And if people use these spaces, is it possible that spaces use people? When a gold chocolate coin is placed on a hotel pillow for the umpteenth time, is the room amused as it watches one more guest delight in the “personal touch”? Maybe. Whether it is a hotel room I watch TV in, a hospital room where I lie ill, or a window that I gaze out, I become connected to the spaces. I am compelled to take their portraits. My current body of work features “Lomo” portraits of public spaces. Using medium format in addition to 35mm, I continue to explore the questions of how spaces use people. My most recent spaces of interest are laundry mats and a time-share cabin in Northern California. Both have allowed me to continue the discussion with them.