Some words about my work

For me, the essence of photography is in the pure pleasure of seeing, the experience of opening a more intuitive, patient, contemplative eye to the world. It is about exploring the strange synergy between quiet receptivity and probing curiosity. It's about appreciating the “suchness” of things, as well as experiencing their complex resonances within personal consciousness. Photography is, for me, the cultivation of a deeper seeing, and through deeper seeing, heightened awareness and emotion. It's about being surprised and delighted by the “ten thousand things” (as the Taoists say) of the world, and cultivating a sense of wonder. It is both a contemplative discipline and a hedonistic surrender to the senses. It's about paying homage to the perceived object itself, and to the process of perception itself—allowing oneself to luxuriate in the exquisite visual pleasures of form, shape, texture, line, light and shadow.

Though photography can be—due to the inherent mechanics of the process—a fairly literal medium for recording surface “facts,” my work is, in part, an attempt to use the camera as a tool for exploring and questioning the concept of objective reality. Perception becomes a form of play. Apprehending the manifest world as constructed and conditional, the world becomes endlessly malleable, a fairyland for the playful imagination. Moving about the world with a camera opens my eyes and mind to the beauty, strangeness, and mystery of it all, while crafting images in the darkroom provides a means for communicating my wonder and delight.

My subjects are various (whatever seduces the eye) but tend most strongly toward portraiture, broadly defined, and images of the natural world. In the case of the former, I have an abiding faith in the camera's ability to reach below surface appearance—or, perhaps more accurately, of disclosing psychic depths etched subtly on observable surfaces. Rather than outer packaging concealing inner being, the human face and form reveal clues to essential character, inner states. M y work in portraiture is thus guided by a sense of the inner mystery of human beings and a desire to probe and touch that mystery.

While some are already known to me, most of my models are people whom I approach “cold” in public places—people I'm drawn to not only because they appear photogenic in one manner or another, but who exude something intangible, something hard to define—something like grace, inwardness, complexity of being. It's obvious that I'm entranced by the great archetypes of Woman and the Divine Feminine. In any case, some of my “subjects,” goddesses among them, have become dear friends.

Concerning landscape and nature studies, I suppose I'm a Romantic or Transcendentalist who believes (nay, feels!) that behind or within the outer appearances of the natural world lie Spirit, Ultimate Being, the Fruitful Void. Not in the sense that trees and rocks and clouds are mere outer symbols of deeper realities—a code to decipher—but rather are themselves the expressive language of Spirit, the very being of the Sacred. One cannot help but feel there are supernal realities residing within the fugitive etchings found within and upon natural forms. Following visual impulses, I will look closely at organic structures—for instance the bark-flesh of trees.  With relaxed eyes, one begins to settle into the pure visuality of the material. Within the apparently chaotic interpenetrations of line, shape, form and texture—beyond the visual delights of pure abstraction—one discovers uncanny visual configurations which, when allowed to sink into the deeper psyche, when received into imaginative consciousness, suggest dreams, visions, surreal narratives. The wondrous visual complexity of the natural world awakens a hunger, and a taste, for the sublime. I appreciate the paradox of these images being both literal and suggestive: close-up views of natural terrain and invitations to imaginal journeys.

Besides images of people and nature, I am also quite involved in photographing dancers, for the simple reason that bodies in motion are both wonderfully expressive and visually compelling. While a still image of a dance performance seems to violate the very premise of dance—the poetry of movement—a momentary image snatched from the blurred flow of movement can itself become a crystalline, iconic moment of human expressiveness.

Other areas in which I photograph actively, if less intensively, include architectural subjects, especially views tending toward abstraction; still lifes, especially of the fugitive and found variety; urban scenes; candids; and finally nudes—a celebration of pure form, as well as an inquiry into the sensual and the erotic.

Technical

I shoot both 35mm (Canon EOS system) and medium format (Mamiya 7 system). I work exclusively in black & white, my favored materials being Kodak films (T-Max series and High Speed Infrared), and Ilford papers. I print all my own work in a home darkroom, employing traditional B&W printing procedures (contrast-control, “burning and dodging,” chemical toning, and occasional use of diffusion). I make no value judgments regarding “straight” vs. “manipulated” images (whether analog or digital), but I do find satisfaction in the “purer,” more traditional forms of photographic imaging, which give free play to personal vision without cutting ties to the manifest world.

It is important to note that the scanned, digitized images
that appear on your computer screen are imperfect representations of the original gelatin-silver prints, often lacking their clarity, dimensionality, and richness of tone.  If you are a connoisseur or collector of fine photographic prints, it is best to view the originals up close, in hand.