While illustration is very new to me, visual storytelling isn’t. As a widely published editorial photographer for 25 years, I have spent my career solving visual puzzles and building pointed narratives with my pictures.

My trek into photo illustration was an unintended detour necessitated by the pandemic lockdown. I was primarily a people photographer, but my subjects were now in seclusion, and my clients were frantically rummaging through my image archive. Desperate for a way to make old portraits new, I wandered aimlessly into the land of “cut and paste.” Since I wasn’t fixated on anything in particular, I chose a path that allowed me to indulge in my long-lingering obsession with pop culture, mid-century American graphic design, and one highly addictive Kmart in-store reel-to-reel tape circa 1973. I also fortuitously stumbled on a box of long-lost snapshots in my parents’ basement that turned out to be the inspiration for a whole new chunk of work.

As an editorial photographer, I’m usually charged with building a narrative around actual pieces in real-life settings, navigating public perceptions while acknowledging the “known.” But as an illustrator, I’ve found myself exercising more creative license by framing narratives around ideas imagined, fictitious, and fabricated. As for procuring the visual ingredients to fill these narratives, I found that the old boxes of stuff that have traveled with me over the years—the ones always relegated to either the closet or the attic, brimming with oddments scrupulously saved but never warranting a space of honor, much like guilty-pleasure songs that never find a comfortable slot on any set playlist—have been a treasure trove of vintage bliss.

Although this body of work was produced over the course of a single year, it has been 50 years in the making. It draws endlessly on the pop culture, history, art, music, and people that have inspired me over a lifetime. My attempt to accomplish something on a professional level led me to draw from the personal and eventually connect it with the historical. Not exactly my intent, but achingly true to my creative process.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2021