Five Minute Portraits is often street photography but sometimes a result of the short encounters we all have when we are out and about or meeting up with our peers, perhaps even a random moment with someone I know well.  There is something about faces in the moment I find myself drawn to capture.  It's not a planned effort, just something I see in a face.  A twinkle in the eyes, a sadness that may pass, a yearning unuttered.  
This type of portraiture started out on a photography meetup walking through the streets of downtown Los Angeles.  Often it was the homeless that were getting photographed like we animals in a zoo.  I was overwhelmed by the impersonal inhumanity like the superstitious belief of stealing someones soul.  So I started having small conversations with whoever I met and asked for the opportunity to photograph the moment.  When it was someone in living in less than ideal conditions, I shared the images by taking another on their cell phone or sending it to them later when film was developed.  The power of seeing something special in someone and them seeing it in themselves when they look at their own image is a feeling I will never get over.  It gives people the dignity and self worth everyone should see in a photograph of themselves.  It is my gift to give people who hate themselves in pictures see themselves in wonder for the unique and special humans they truly are.

This is an ongoing project, one I will shoot for the rest of my life.