Jason Travis is an American photographer and graphic designer known for Persona, a portrait project that pairs people with the contents of their bags and the objects they carry every day. The work turns a standard portrait into a study of taste, routine, occupation, and self-presentation, using simple documentary photography and careful arrangement of personal items.
- Best known for Persona, a long-running portrait series.
- Works with portrait photography and graphic design.
- Uses everyday carried objects to build a fuller picture of each subject.
- Shows how accessories, tools, and clutter can function as visual biography.
What is Persona?
Persona is a portrait format Jason Travis developed around an apparently simple premise: photograph a person, then photograph the contents of the bag, backpack, purse, or satchel they carry. The two images together create a compact profile. One shows face, clothing, posture, and style; the other shows habits, work, anxieties, and priorities through objects such as notebooks, medicines, cables, cosmetics, receipts, books, and tools.
The project matters because it shifts portraiture away from likeness alone. A hand, a keychain, a pen, a camera battery, or a packet of gum can reveal more about a person’s daily life than a smile can. Travis treats those items as evidence, arranging them with the clarity of an editorial still life.
How does Travis make the work?
The method depends on plain studio or documentary techniques rather than elaborate staging. Subjects are photographed in a straightforward portrait setup, then asked to empty their bags. The objects are laid out and photographed as a group, often in a tidy grid or flat-lay arrangement so that each item remains legible. That visual order is crucial: it lets the viewer scan the contents as if reading a list, but also notice the accidental beauty of worn leather, crumpled paper, scuffed plastic, and mixed materials.
Because the project uses everyday possessions, the material details carry much of the meaning. Fabric bags, metal zippers, phone chargers, coins, lip balm, sketchbooks, transit cards, and headphones all suggest different kinds of movement through the city and different forms of labour. The pictures feel intimate without being confessional. They are built from what a person chooses to keep close at hand.
Why did the series catch attention?
Persona arrived at a moment when personal identity was increasingly performed through visible objects and curated lifestyle signals. Travis gave that tendency a clear visual form. The project works quickly because the rules are easy to understand, but it stays interesting because no two inventories look alike. One person’s bag contents are sparse and practical; another’s are crowded, sentimental, or highly specialised.
The series also sits comfortably between portraiture, product photography, and graphic design. The subjects are human, but the layout gives the pictures an almost catalog-like precision. That hybrid quality helped the work circulate widely in design and photography contexts, where people responded to both its psychological reading and its clean presentation.
What does it show beyond the bag?
The real subject of Persona is not storage but habit. A bag’s contents show how a person prepares for work, travel, emergencies, creative tasks, or social life. Some bags are loaded with analogue tools: pens, rolls of tape, notebooks, sketch materials, film, or hand cream. Others reveal a digital routine through chargers, earbuds, adapters, and portable batteries. Small items can also signal care and vulnerability: medication, tissues, lucky charms, snacks, bandages, or folded notes.
That is why the project continues to feel useful. It offers a method for reading the ordinary objects that accompany modern life. Travis does not force a story onto the subjects; he lets the objects imply one. The result is a portrait of identity as something assembled from materials, routines, and the things people carry to get through the day.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Jason Travis mainly a photographer or a designer?
He is both. The photographic side of Persona depends on portrait and still-life technique, while the design sensibility appears in the controlled layout and emphasis on clarity. That combination helps the project read as both an art series and a visual system.
What makes Persona different from an ordinary portrait series?
An ordinary portrait shows appearance at a single moment. Persona adds a second layer by showing the objects that support a person’s daily life. That extra image changes the portrait from a likeness into a description of habits, work, and material culture.
Why do people respond so strongly to pictures of bag contents?
Bag contents feel private but familiar. Most people recognise the impulse to carry certain objects everywhere, and they can infer a great deal from what is present or missing. The images invite comparison without requiring expertise, which makes them easy to understand and hard to forget.
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