My father kept a darkroom and carried his camera everywhere. That's where it started.
I grew up watching silver prints emerge in chemical baths, learning that a photograph is never just a record of what happened. It's a decision. A point of view. A question asked of the world.
Black and white still fascinates me for exactly that reason. Strip away color and what remains is pure: emotion, light, shadow, truth. Or something more interesting than truth. For a long time it was my default language. In the last few years color has taken over, not because I stopped believing in black and white, but because the work I'm making now demands it. Some ideas need the full spectrum to land.
I came up as a photo assistant and producer in a commercial studio, learning the craft from the inside out, from the equipment room to the studio floor. As a freelancer, commercial work was never quite what I wanted for myself. But as technology made image-making more accessible and digital content saturated everything, what had felt like a compromise became a clear turning point. I stepped back from client deadlines and stepped toward something harder to name but easier to feel.
That same technological shift opened another door. I now work across photography, AI image generation, and compositing, combining real shoots with built worlds to make images that couldn't exist otherwise. It's not about replacing the camera. The camera started all of this. It's about expanding what a photograph can be and what it can say.
Now I make pictures that come from curiosity, intention, and a sense of responsibility toward the subjects I photograph and the issues I care about. Fashion, advertising, consumer culture: all tools. Never the point. The point is always the idea underneath. In the community, on the scene, behind the lens.
What keeps me going isn't the finished image. It's the moment someone sees a photograph of themselves and recognizes something true. That moment. Every time.
My camera is still my tool for curious self-expression. Some things don't change.
~ Trudy Giordano