I’ve recently delved into a few days of shooting for a new project I plan to spend a lot more time shooting over the next year.  After my first few days of shooting though, I’m eager to share and more eager to find more locations through which to explore the idea.

The project is entitled, ‘The Fourth Wall’, derived from the theatrical term for the invisible barrier that separates the audience from the fictional characters on stage.  More often, the phrase is used in reference to breaking that wall down. For me, this all relates back to our earliest impressions of the world around us.

As children with wild imaginations, we are taught that the world is separated into reality and fantasy, fiction and non-fiction.  These early teachings are perhaps what plants the seeds of curiosity with pretending we are in a place or time that we are not.

Then the 1950s, Walt Disney fueled this fire when he set out to create a fantasy world that was designed and marketed not just to children, but adults as well.  This led to the creation of Walt Disneyland, and laid the groundwork for the larger more grandiose Walt Disney World shortly after his death. 

With an economy in disarray and one of the worst natural disasters in modern history, Americans are looking for these brief escapes from daily life now more than years past.  I will be exploring this idea by documenting these geographic locations, both large and small, across the country which celebrate participation in these altered theatrical realities. 

One of my first stops, a natural entry into the new essay, took me to Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida.  The place is like a convention for fake realities with representations of 10 countries from around the world, built around a large man-made lake which hosts nightly fireworks shows.  You can dine on French cuisine before listening to a mariachi band in front of a volcanic backdrop, and top it all off with a trip to the future.  What interests me more than these actual spaces are the patrons’ interactions with them. 

So here’s a few images from a day shooting at Epcot. 

More to come…

I've recently delved into a few days of shooting for a new project I plan to spend a lot more time shooting over the next year.  After my first few days of shooting though, I'm eager to share and more eager to find more locations through which to explore the idea. The project is entitled, ...