The town I have come to call home is one that echoes two concepts resoundingly, glamor and loneliness. I live in New York City and I met Anastasia, the protagonist of my series over a year ago. Ana came to this country as a foreigner, so did I. While the prospect of gain and glitz and the promise of a better life takes a lot of us travelers to distant shores, an empty void in the heart can remain.

Through extended conversations with Anastasia and having lived overseas for several years now, I have come to believe that there is something common between our sparkling lives in glossy cities, it's solitude. Whether we hail from the midwest or India, our understanding of loneliness is what binds our fabric as human beings. I used fragmented whispers of Anastasia's personal life and took on the role of a fiction writer for this project.

A strong realization for me has been how as a society we can all relate to a sense of detachment and isolation, sometimes even as we stand shoulder to shoulder on a crowded subway. Day in and day out our manicured facade continues to lose against our ability to feel lonesome in the lap of noise and company. These images are a commentary on how we choose to pursue a romance with one self which is both exotic yet tragic and lush yet lonely... vulnerably finding our own secret gardens as we walk in and out of reality.