The images of mine that I value the most partake of realism and surrealism,
expressionism and abstraction. I aim to make photographs of objects and
scenes that will look as though they're inside the soul as much as they are
on the street or in the woods. I want them to be like the stories of E.T.A
Hoffman – “The Golden Flower Pot,” “The Sandman,” “The Vegetable
King,” “The Nutcracker” (in which Herr Drosselmeyer appears) – stories in
which common things prove to be other or more than they first appeared,
in which dreams invade waking reality with nightmares or marvels. I want
images that join physical sight and spiritual vision. In my work, a backlit
icicle in a highway underpass may radiate sexual menace; a corroded
harbor piling may look like something from Picasso’s “Guernica”; strands of
seaweed pulled by the current might seem engaged in a sunlit dance.
Darkness and shadows are prominent in my images, but while I grew up
loving the masters of black & white photography (especially Kertesz,
Weston, Brandt and Frank), color is vital to my work. I aim to use color so
that it not only gives pleasure, but drives the mood and force of the image.
I don't want color to scatter the attention; in most of my photographs, the
color palette in a given photograph tends to be limited to variants of one or
two dominant colors, with whites, grays, and blacks. I prize what Ernst Haas
called "the poetic element." I want all the print's aspects to
draw the viewer into its world. Once that occurs, I want the viewer to feel
that there's still another room beyond the first, an intimation of further
mystery and experience, its tail just visible under the door.
expressionism and abstraction. I aim to make photographs of objects and
scenes that will look as though they're inside the soul as much as they are
on the street or in the woods. I want them to be like the stories of E.T.A
Hoffman – “The Golden Flower Pot,” “The Sandman,” “The Vegetable
King,” “The Nutcracker” (in which Herr Drosselmeyer appears) – stories in
which common things prove to be other or more than they first appeared,
in which dreams invade waking reality with nightmares or marvels. I want
images that join physical sight and spiritual vision. In my work, a backlit
icicle in a highway underpass may radiate sexual menace; a corroded
harbor piling may look like something from Picasso’s “Guernica”; strands of
seaweed pulled by the current might seem engaged in a sunlit dance.
Darkness and shadows are prominent in my images, but while I grew up
loving the masters of black & white photography (especially Kertesz,
Weston, Brandt and Frank), color is vital to my work. I aim to use color so
that it not only gives pleasure, but drives the mood and force of the image.
I don't want color to scatter the attention; in most of my photographs, the
color palette in a given photograph tends to be limited to variants of one or
two dominant colors, with whites, grays, and blacks. I prize what Ernst Haas
called "the poetic element." I want all the print's aspects to
draw the viewer into its world. Once that occurs, I want the viewer to feel
that there's still another room beyond the first, an intimation of further
mystery and experience, its tail just visible under the door.
