1st place
gold star award
> joSon
united states
title
My Pet and I
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entry description
In this project, I decided to confront my own fears of being around snakes and reptiles and I combined that with my love of children in my portrait series “My Pet and I.” I was determined to pair up the fearlessness that I saw in the children with the adult perception of animals like snakes as being dark and sinister. I am also fascinated by children who have some of these exotic animals as pets instead of cats and dogs and was inspired by their excitement, enthusiasm, and fearlessness for these pets who did not appear to convey any reciprocal affection.about the photographer
Award-winning photographer joSon was born in the Philippines to a Filipino mother and an African American father. Sent to live with his mother’s family in Vietnam at age ten, he was educated in a Buddhist temple in preparation for becoming a monk. “I thought that was my calling long before I saw life through the viewfinder,” joSon recollects. “But the truth is, I have never left the monk-hood. I just left the temple.” Today joSon is a professional photographer based in San Francisco whose work is collected by an international list of clients. His work has appeared in magazines including Scientific American, Outside, Conde Nast Traveler and Vogue. He as won awards from Photo District News (PDN), Communication Arts, and American Illustration and American Photography (AI-AP). As Sunset Magazine described joSon’s first monograph, joSon: Intimate Portraits of Nature, from Graphis Press in 2013: "Had Richard Avedon taken up gardening, he might have ended up with photos like this.”back to gallery