"Aspiring" is a great series of aspiring Baltimore models portraits taken in their own living place by american photographer Jay Parkinson. People's homes obviously reflect their personalities and I love this kind of portraits as they usually look much more intimate and authentic than the studio ones.

From his interview with Conscientious' Jorg Colberg:

"One thing that I think makes all of these photographs interesting is that these models all have the confidence to get in front of a camera and give it their best and, on top of all that, let me into their homes so I can capture them in what should be their most comfortable place in the world. But often, this translated into a very vulnerable appearance. I specifically contacted only models that had done only one or two shoots, and sometimes no prior shoots. I wanted to capture them in the very beginning of their efforts to realize their dreams. Every aspiring model also has some sort of notion of how a professional model should pose in front of the camera, but actually getting your body to do that does not translate well on the first or second shoot. Professional models are professional models for a reason -- they've had the experience to simply know what to do and how to pose. I provided very minimal to sometimes no direction for poses in these shoots. I wanted the poses undeveloped and immature to document a sort of tension between their dreams and reality."

You can read the whole interview here.

I really like Mr Parkinson's new works too: