I believe in teamwork. Hell, I played soccer for fifteen years. I don't think I'm a jock or anything? I just like the idea of teamwork, friends, and groupings of passionate people making moves towards positive ideas.

Another parallel is skateboarding. If your homeboy does a trick, you get stoked.

I have several, several close friends who shoot all of the time. So if my friend shoots a image that I like, I get thoroughly excited. I know that the pieces came together for that frame.

You can dive very deep into that interaction between camera, photographer, and subject. However, I am just going to cut to the chase and tell you I love some people and I love their photography just as much.

I met Ben Lepley on a forum named Skateperception as a high schooler. Sometimes we search Skateperception for old posts. We find some jewels since we have been posting skate photos there since we were fifteen and sixteen years old. We gently grew out of skate photography and searched for a more "conceptual" side of photography. We eased into a community on flickr and pursued a more contemporary view on photography as we grew older and matured. I contacted Ben when I was planning to go to New York and I stayed at his house in Long Island with his amazing parents. The rest, as they say, is history, my friends.

Ben is young. At eighteen he is pursuing big things. I believe he is ready to make a jump to a institution where his photography can grow. He has a good understanding of the space around him and really deserves a good contemporary dialogue. Even through a "funk" of finding the right place for himself he continues to shoot and pursue concepts and thoughts.

I could speak a lot about him. I am excited most about his future work but also about a collaborative project between myself, Ben, Will, and Kohlton.

Move to Chicago, Ben.

Here are a few select images from Ben's flickr