Energy Does Not Hold Still

When I made the switch from film to digital, I knew I wanted to push myself to photograph people and understand light in ways that landscape and architecture could not teach me. Taylor Knight-Addams gave me that opportunity.

Taylor was a good friend I met in Greensboro, North Carolina, and one of the first people to welcome me into the performance community. He performed in drag, and when I asked if I could tag along and photograph his shows, he said yes. That trust meant a great deal. These photos were shot in November 2008 at a club in Florence, South Carolina, where Taylor was performing that night.

They are some of the earliest people work in this collection, and they show a photographer learning in real time what it means to chase light in a dark room and movement that never stops. The motion blur in some of these frames was not always intentional. But looking back, it captured something true about what it felt like to be in that space watching Taylor perform. Energy does not hold still, and neither did he.