I’m all over this…A very different approach to street art, courtesy of Portland photographer and painter Torin Stephens. 1) Find a photo of a recently departed Oregonian on Facebook or a Web news source. 2) Project their image onto a place that meant something to them: a favorite spot...or their final spot.3) Photograph the image projection and repost on the Web.
"These images were a copy of a copy, but by reintegrating them into the physical world and treating them as spiritual fragments, I hope to instill them with new life,” Stephens says. As those who grieve, I think we tend to imagine people’s physical bodies still moving around the same environs they did when they are alive. Especially when they die young and tragically, as all of these individuals did. This is one thing that is so striking about Stephens’ work. As humans, this is how our mind sees them: embodied. 
While he claims no relationship with his subjects, I’m sure an ethereal bond arises after working with their images in this intimate a manner. He notes,“Western culture, unlike many other cultures, resists the idea of ghostly presence. The work suggests that if we cannot as a culture see these symbols, perhaps we must create them in order to tap into their emotive power.”Intentionally created ghostly visages via light and lens. Wow.
Stephens’ own presence on the Internet is a bit spectral, with little information to be found, except his own Facebook page and a piece on the Wooster Collective, but I hope we see more from him.
Subjects' names:
1/Kipp Crawford
2/David Minor
3/Keaton Otis
4/Seamus DuBarry
5/Grace Throckmorton
