I consider the portrait as a trace of the body or performance for the lens. Since its inception, the photographic portrait has been used to honor or vilify the human subject. Initially my interest was in exploring family portraits this led to further explorations into portrait photographs in the public context such as museums, institutional archives and in the news media. In these images I pose my own body before the lens using a long exposure of several minutes rather than the conventional fraction of a second. They are made using wet collodion one of the first photographic processes that requires the light sensitive emulsion to stay wet while exposure is made resulting at times in presence of liquid residue markings that interrupt the surface of the image and draw attention to the materiality of photograph which in most portraits remains invisible. Through the creation of this fictional archive I seek to engage with issues of surveillance, memory, authenticity and archival practices.