“You'll be swell! You'll be great!

Gonna have the whole world on the plate!

Starting here, starting now,

honey, everything's coming up roses!”

-- Stephen Sondheim

Coming Up Roses is a series of photographs looking at adolescent development in the context of contemporary culture. The project mixes portraits and landscapes as metaphors in order to examine the contemporary attitudes of universal praise in parenting, happiness as a façade and the spectacle of excess. Our culture languishes in a selfish, capitalistic “winner takes all”, “beauty is what you see on TV”, “more is more” mentality, which presents itself in everything from the way we raise our children to how we treat the elderly, and from how we shop to our attitudes about suburban development. In my photographs, I emphasize personal experience and examples from my own life which examine some of the larger issues in which I am interested.