Image of the photographer by Tanner Meche

I’m Payton, a freelance documentary photographer from Bayfield, Colorado. I aim to share stories centered around social performance, cultural marginalization, indigenous rights, and communal response to climate change. In 2023 I moved to Boulder, Colorado where I am currently studying a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology with a minor in Journalism.

Recently, I finished editing my first long term photo essay on the teenagers of my hometown, Hand in Unloveable Hand. What began as incidental documentation of my friends in high school evolved into a series dedicated to defining the relationship between presentation and vulnerability which is integral to living as an adolescent in a small agricultural town.