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Providence Portrait Project

My friend Buff Chace had long dreamed about having portraits made of all the people he had encountered in his 20+ year journey in rejuvenating his hometown of Providence, RI.

When I completed photography school, Buff invited me to join him in working on his dream of a portrait project. We initially thought we might photograph 20 or 25 people so we built a “pop-up” photography studio in Providence. Seven months later, we had made portraits of 122 people who had contributed in some significant way to the revitalization of Providence. By the end of the project, we realized our list could have been much larger because so many other Rhode Islanders have done such a wonderful job of transforming their Capitol city.

We mounted a large portrait exhibit (which remained on display for almost 3 years), published a book of the portraits, and created a web site with a video that talks about the project providenceportraitproject.com.

This project was the catalyst for my interest in community-based portraiture.