Photography: Trista McGovern

text and photography submitted by Trista McGovern

I have a great fondness for people. My work in intimate portraits focuses on breaking down barriers to illuminate vulnerability and individual personalities. The images often have minimal clothing and environments, and all façades of expressions are removed to help represent the honest, raw human. Just like our lives and our personalities, our bodies are all unique and show their own story.

Even though I enjoy photographing details of the body in abstract landscapes for the aesthetics of lines, dots, shapes, and imperfections, hands have become their own type of portraits for me. Hands can represent so much of what people do with their lives, and can be one of the most expressive parts of a person.

I am driven by anything genuinely meaningful. Anywhere from capturing love between couples in their backyard weddings, to creating a series focusing on a social issue, I look for the things that drive us, connect us, and heal us. No matter what I’m doing, it always gravitates towards one thing: humans being humans.