Believe Me, named after Trump’s most frequently used two-word phrase, is a series of photographs resembling surveillance images that one might find on Google Earth. Thinking about consumer waste, I staged site-specific installations in the environment that challenged our current post-fact world influenced by hyperbolic reality television, fake news, sensational journalism, and virtual experiences. Each scene creates an illusion of normalcy that is unveiled with a longer viewing. By performing the characters and giving control over to a drone, I became a puppet in the process—flipping the relationship between photographer and subject as well as referencing contemporary surveillance practices. The nature of this type of extreme aerial imagery and how it’s used (for Google Maps, drone strikes, breaking news, and policing), creates a certainty for the viewer and a validation of authenticity. A God’s-eye view taken at face value. Though seemingly digitally fabricated, my images are created in camera, using Photoshop only to combine the characters, all of which I perform.