ABOUT ME

My name is Jorge Tamez. I was born in Mexico, now residing in the US. When I was a kid I remember scrolling through my father’s magazines, which were mostly about current events or politics and getting fixated on the images. I would spend my time looking at the photographs and trying to imagine the moments right before or immediately after the photo was taken. I would think about the parts of the background in the photos that were accidentally immortalized: a dog walking by as someone was being interviewed, a piece of trash that some inconsiderate a-hole tossed on the street, a hand-written sign in front of a storefront that was taking too much space on the piece of cardboard so the last letters were crunched together. All of those little and otherwise insignificant samples of society have now been given an audience by happenstance.

I wasn’t always fascinated by photography itself, but even as a child I was always captivated by the art of storytelling. Possessing the ability to convey an idea or an emotion through an otherwise unconventional way. We can sit down and talk about first loves and, of course, that will resonate with others as long as we speak the same language. But looking at a photograph of a young couple sitting by the edge of a bed with one person resting their head on top of the other one’s lap while the other leans down and forward, kissing them on the shoulder blade –their bodies being sculpted by a dimly lit table lamp off camera. That image lingers in your head and takes you back to that moment in your own life because everyone has been in that situation in one way or another. And all of a sudden you are nineteen again. You start thinking about the moments before that photograph was taken. Maybe you were nervous or excited, but whatever it was, you knew you had crossed a threshold in your life that you were never going to go back to. And as you reminisce, you take a deep breath and now memories of what went on after begin to manifest from the depths of your subconscious. Maybe it is the minutes after, maybe it is the months or years that followed. And perhaps things didn’t turn out as you had hoped and sorrow creeps in in the back of your throat but you are older now and wiser and you have learned to look at those moments with fondness. Afterall what is life if not a festival of slowly accepting was has been done to us.

I see photographs as miniature time capsules. I used to cringe at my old work. I still could if I wanted to. I could criticize color banding due to bad photoshop or compression settings. I could criticize color choices or the focal length. I could bang my head against the desk wondering why I chose to display images that were too similar to one another within the same photo shoot. But I look at my old work now and it reminds me how I was fastidiously checking my phone between looks to see if a girl had replied to my texts or how fun we had after the shoot getting drinks with the friend I was photographing or how me and my second shooter took turns introducing each other to new music on our drive to a wedding venue sometimes poking fun of the other person’s selection. I look at those old photographs and I get back my memories that otherwise I would not have access to. I think of the friends that I had back then. People that by choice or chance are no longer part of my life. And I can think of them fondly. My old photographs have given me that freedom.


Photography has given me something no other medium can: the key to my own memories. It is nothing but a privilege to be able to gift that to others.