A friend once observed “you photograph people when they are not there.” He had been looking at my photographs — one of an empty chair on a Native American reservation, a series of Maya ruins, many of funerary statues of angels in Key West and Havana, collected religious offerings in a chapel in New Orleans, and medieval stairways in Catalonia.

While on occasion I have photographed specific people or events as a primary subject, I am more likely to celebrate people using objects in their stead. The objects that we create and collect, from architectural and sculptural details to our collections of toys, rocks and shells are imbued with our presence. In essence, I photograph people when they are not there.

image: Dolls and Idols: Good Luck I, © Wendy Gogel, 1995.