Photography – San Francisco

Joshua Lee is best known for his dramatic use of lighting to highlight form and bring his subjects into a vivid bold surreal reality. His recent work combines his technical background with studio lighting and merges it with an exploration of body and form that separates the subject from space and time. Highlighting the subtle features of the body his work encourages us to look at the female form and recognize its power not just its beauty. The hands become a dominant feature that propels a sense of strength and control throughout his work. The fascination with documenting our reality set in far before Lee began his actual career with photography. He found it essential to create documents of his surroundings in an almost compulsory way as a child and teen. As he was exposed to journalists like Herni Cartier Bresson and Margaret Bourke-White they became his roll models. Their fearlessness to document our reality and bring awareness to social issues and truths in our society inspired him to give back and create for his community as well. Those influences led him to pursuing a degree in Journalism at the University of Oregon where he focused on photojournalism, documentary film and combined that with an art minor in black and white film photography. Journalism still inspires him today even though he has gravitated towards a more technical background in photography. His current projects aim to merge that social awareness he found in journalism and combine it with artist expression to encourage the viewer to enjoy both the artistic form and also spread information on provocative topics.