This is a collection of scans from the Color Atlas and Synopsis of Clinical Dermatology (1991) textbook I repeatedly returned to as a kid. The textbook lives on a bookshelf in my childhood home, with many other similar texts acquired over the course of my parents’ graduate studies in the medical field. These particular images, immortalizing the faces of people at their most vulnerable, have consistently stood out to me above all. The subjects are starkly portrayed; unposed, ungroomed, unedited, mere inches away from the camera’s lens. Looking at these faces, I felt empathy and repulsion and curiosity and anxiety all at the same time. Despite the utilitarian intention of their capture and display, I have always understood these photographs as art. My fascination with these pictures helped me realize I am drawn more to images that provoke strong contradictory emotions than ones that bring me simply peace. This idea has remained central to the ethos of my photographic practice through today.