Alex Owen. Residence. 2010.
Alex Owen. Residence. 2010.
The second half of the images of long time friend and classmate, Alex Owen is my latest subject for my series,
The Class of 99 Turns 30. Alex is a musician seen in front of his former Tempe, AZ residence with his Rhodesian Ridgeback, Beyonce. He has since taken his talents to Los Angeles. The images above is the final portfolio selection and outtakes after the jump.
With the help of fine art photography’s most sought after consultant and editor
Mary Virgina Swanson, we have since added to the series title “
The Class of 99” to
“The Class of 99 Turns 30.” The below essay is the series preface explaining the concept and themes behind my project.
This year my high school classmates and I turned 30. As we entered adulthood, we had reason to be optimistic and confident. Our formative years were cocooned in security, a youth spent in a time of economic growth and low unemployment.
This is what we were promised: “You are being bequeathed the tools for achieving a material existence that neither my generation nor any that preceded it could even remotely imagined as we began our life’s work.” – Alan Greenspan to the Harvard graduating class of 1999
Today, unemployment hovers at 9.6 percent. Housing foreclosures are at an all time high and personal bankruptcy filings are estimated to affect 1.7 million Americans. My generation is the first in a hundred years that is unlikely to be financially better off than its parents.
It’s in this moment of transition that I photographed my classmates in settings relevant to the lives they are building.
The images show a community last assembled at graduation during America’s most prosperous moment, regrouping in 2009 during the toughest economic and social circumstances since the Great Depression. The portraits examine what has been gained or lost in the interim.
Some are recovering from job losses, drug and alcohol addiction and loss of family. Others are building families, achieving in the their early careers and volunteering in their communities. Like all generations, we struggle to define ourselves as parents, citizens, family members and spouses. We work to create meaningful lives; we work to understand what “meaningful” looks like.
View More
