Bio
Taylor Sly (he/him) is a Springfield, MO native with a lifelong passion for portraiture and music photography. Though his interest in photography started with stop-motion Lego animations as a grade schooler, his interests shifted into portraiture during his time as an undergraduate in Missouri State's Digital Film Production program, which he spent photographing friends, aspiring filmmakers, and local musicians. Sly later graduated with an M.A. in Communication, through which he became increasingly interested in photography as a means of both community uplift and formal sociological study.
To me, photography is a form of communion. It is seeing and being seen. Photography gives us the unique opportunity to externalize a bit of ourselves in material form, to come together and express how we are and who we are as part of our individual lifelong projects of learning about each other and ourselves. The photos we take legitimize those moments in time: graduations, concert performances, proposals, birthdays, personal portraits and get-togethers with friends. Photography is an inherently shared activity, and through the lens, we are able to provide a platform for subjects to bare a bit of their souls -- a bit of that unique interior richness -- and be received in good faith.
My goal as a portrait photographer is to help make those moments of earnestness and honesty happen easily, and for that process to make my subjects feel connected to the final product. I routinely meet people who hate having their photograph taken, and I take it as a personal challenge to provide a kind of fun, low-stakes environment that could help make that process of "seeing and being seen" feel less like an invasion of privacy and more like a conversation with one's self. Photography can -- and should be -- approached as a means of self-discovery, self-appreciation and radical self-love, and my ultimate goal is to provide people with photos they can look back at and think, "I'm glad this photo was taken".