Reaching Volume One

PROJECT STATEMENT

This ongoing project is a fine art form-based photographic landscape nature study on the ways trees and tree parts physically reach into the above ground spaces in which they live.

This project rose out of deep fascination and wonderment for the forest and with a goal to develop visual acuity with its reaching parts.

Visually or formerly, images fall on a spectrum of simple to complex. Simple formal scenarios, i.e., branches, tree parts or solo trees reaching in from one or more sides of the frame into larger negative spaces, and second, complex formal scenarios, with branches reaching in all directions, almost completely filling up negative spaces, and entering the frame from all sides. I wanted to create formal relationships not dependent on a level horizon or traces of ground, but instead on how each tree part and tree interact with the frame, each other and the sky.

Volume I includes: 34 8"x12" color prints on Hahnemuehle William Turner fine art archival paper with 2" warm off-white colored mattes inside .75" black walnut frames.

Delivery Notes

PROJECT STATEMENT

Sitting behind the wheel of my white '94 Honda Accord, I enter address information into my iPhone for the next delivery. Along with ever-present concerns for safety and on-time hot pizzas, I anticipate experiencing another incredible sunset as I get ready to drive northwest towards a pink-purple sky. Driving with my camera at the ready power-poles and trees whizz by between intermittent vistas of Lake Jackson....

The methodology of photographing while delivering pizzas produced a kind of snapshot potpourri style. Compositions were both intentional and accidental, but always captured intended colors and qualities of light. The series rose out of a desire to record the beautiful serene colors of North Florida sunsets and then morphed into a multi-style series with contrasting energies. Like the short-lived freshness of fast-food, 5”x7” inkjet prints are presented on non-archival matte paper with 1.5" corrugated cardboard pizza-box window mattes inside 8”x10” 'dollar-store' black plastic frames. $10 CHEAP!

Sensing Currents

PROJECT STATEMENT

There is something mysterious about the ways sunlight affects the senses of humans and plants, how leaves and branches instinctively turn sunward or how humans react to the emotional light of a day's beginning or end. It is fascinating to imagine what plants and trees might experience as their sense organs react to this stimuli. What does a plant sense with the first rays of light in the morning or the last at night? What does touch feel like to a plant? What does rain, wind or even thunder feel like? And, what kinds of discourses do these organisms have with one another regarding these experiences? Contemplating the answers to these questions guided the image making for this series. Using Fujifilm Fujichrome Provia 100 transparencies and playing with the expressive focusing capabilities of an analog 4x5 view camera, I showed the landscape in abstract, abnormal and foreign ways. This project was photographed during mornings and late afternoons in Governor's Park, Tallahassee, Florida 2016.

Solo Trees

PROJECT STATEMENT

This ongoing series is all about the isolated tree portrait. Mixing urban landscape photography with environmental tree portraiture, tree portraits were composed to give each subject prominence in the landscape. The series was shot, mostly along roads, beaches and coastlines in the Southern Caribbean and Baltic, and all on shore-leave while working on cruise ships. The interesting interactions with human-made objects also played a part as all images reveal ways in which urban trees interact with their environments. While the graphic presence of these organic subjects guided my visual pleasure centers, there was also an interest in showing how greenery in our urban environments creates a sense of place, like a calming backdrop or presence that is more often felt than thought about. Trees and green spaces definitely add to our well-being and it is a goal of this project to bring a little bit of that indoors.
PROJECT STATEMENT

This project was an outgrowth of a documentary project created while in grad school in San Francisco and started with the busker scenes there. Later it continued to several Baltic and European port cities where my ship contracts sent me. These images were shot in the spring, summer and autumn of 2012. Part documentary, part street photography, and part creative portraiture, my goal was to tell stories that help bring a better understanding and dignity to the art and its performers. The project taught me about street life, ingenuity and the value of having a successful performance talent.

This project was also presented on one of my first Adobe Muse sites - published in 2012 - which includes additional images and some as diptychs.

Busking Through

PROJECT STATEMENT

During summer-break after my first semester in graduate school, I made a fine art book project on the same neighborhood I grew up in as a teen. There are two ways to view this project. Either in its original book form as a PDF or as presented below.

Introduction excerpt from book:
Chasing the Light, Summer In San Marco is a fine art photography book on the riverside community of San Marco, Florida. This collection of images is also a rediscovery of the same neighborhood that 30 years earlier helped fuel my love for photography.

The original idea for this project happened by chance. After my first semester of graduate school (MFA in Photography) I had the opportunity to condo-sit in the same neighborhood where I spent my teen years (age 13-19). This opportunity afforded me the time to shoot whatever I wanted for three months. It was as if the project presented itself. I knew that simply wandering and photographing this place was going to be a big part of my summer, so I decided to organize a project around it. As I now prepare to publish my first Blurb book, almost two years later, it is evident to me that this was a magical time. A time that excited my senses and made me feel alive.

The intent for this project is twofold. First as a project of self-discovery and second as a nostalgic document of San Marco from an earlier time. As a project of self-discovery...

Chasing the Light, Summer In San Marco 2011