Shortly after Barack Obama was elected, there was such a great energy and overall feeling in the atmosphere that I felt the urge to capture it. Be a part of this overall feeling of change. To many of my friends and family it was an unbelievable historical moment, a shift in the American experience that is almost unparallel in this century.

Inspired by the work done by so many amazing photographers before me, namely Richard Avedon and Gordon Parks, I had the idea to do a portrait series of the Americans who cast their vote for change. I wasn't quite sure how exactly it would work out. Where I would meet these people? How I would get them to sit for me? I only knew that to accomplish this I would need to follow certain guidelines.

A first was to keep it simple. So many projects start and fail because they are too grand in their scope. They encompass so much that they become too difficult to complete and eventually die a slow death. I didn't want this project to die in this way. A second guideline was to include as diverse a population as possible. I wanted to make sure that I include individuals from diverse backgrounds, spanning race, age, gender, religion and sexual orientation . An important factor, location, would be much more difficult since I don't have the capacity to travel the country photographing individuals. The third guideline would be the message the individual would communicate. I wanted to record what each person thought about the election and their vote. To get a sense of why. I had the idea to have each participant answer the same three questions. This way the project would have a specific focus. I hoped the diversity of the responses to these questions would be an enlightning part of this project. I have had, and continue to have mixed feeling about asking the specific questions since I feel it may limit the depth of the responses. By having those who sit for me only answer these questions, am I missing out on something that they would like to say that is even more important. More revealing.

I don't yet have a specific end goal in mind. I expect this project to have a life of it's own. I hope to keep photographing as many people as I can.

Interested in participating? Email us at info@votedforchange.org .
We would be happy to here from you.

Sherman Charles