“You'll be swell! You'll be great!

Gonna have the whole world on the plate!

Starting here, starting now,

Honey, everything's coming up roses!”

-- Stephen Sondheim

Coming Up Roses is a series of photographs looking at adolescent development in the context of contemporary culture. The project mixes portraits and landscapes as metaphors in order to examine the contemporary attitudes of universal praise in parenting, happiness as a façade and the spectacle of excess.