A Hymn to Beauty

"The true reason for my photographs is an attempt to stop the clock at the glorious time of Youth.  It is a way to counter intolerance and envy with a hymn to beauty. Youth is a fleeting state of grace…and in time, we will all vanish into the mist, to become mere shadows of what we once remembered. 

There is a poem by Victor Hugo which ends with,  'I'll soon leave in the middle of the feast, but the world will lose nothing of its size and glory. ' 

What matters, in fact is that the feast should take place and that we may find photographs, like confetti on a ballroom floor the morning after the dance, to keep the event alive in the memory of those who danced all night, or in the imaginations of those who were not invited."  

Joseph R. Lepp (c. 1958)