Drawn to Abstraction

I have always had a great sense of space, dimension and geometry. This ability made an appearance in my photos from the very beginning, and continues to pepper my compositions today. Whether I am contracted to shoot a photo for a magazine, a corporation, or creating images for arts' sake.

I am also a reformed perfectionist. Attention to detail is very important to me, and every aspect of a process gets my complete attention. In the past this would sometimes mean obsessing over a technique for hours on end, until I had lost all track of time. But now I have learned to control this impulse and focus my energy efficiently, while still considering every detail.

I prefer to work in Black and White. But there are times when color seduces me. Some subjects just scream to be displayed in color, and I can not ignore them. I once read about a sculptor who "Listened" to the wood, or the stone, before he began to carve. He said the medium knew what it wanted to be. This is how I view photographs. Most, in my mind, are best reduced to their basic geometries and tonal qualities in black and white. This allows the viewer to separate themselves from the objects in the composition. To see the image objectively, removed from the subjective familiarity of their color saturated world. But, once in a while, a scene jumps out at me, not simply because of an interesting composition, but for it's juxtaposition of amazing colors. The scene "knows" it wants to be represented in color, and I oblige.

I currently work totally in digital. This medium has allowed photographers to create images with a new level of detail and tonal qualities. I spent years in the darkroom (over a decade) perfecting my printing techniques. Now with digital, and high end printers, I am able to reproduce that quality, and in some cases supersede it.

Photography has always fought an uphill battle to be recognized as an art form. Every time there is a new technique, or technology introduced the curmudgeons come out of hiding to say that this or that waters down what photography "Is". "This new fangled stuff is not art!" they say. And the digital transition has probably had it the worst. However, if we understand what the word "Photography" means: "Draw with Light" we understand that a digitally created photograph is still a photograph. It was "drawn with Light". And if "Traditional" photography is accepted as art, then so should it's digitally created scion.

This has been a boon to photographers and collectors of art alike. As a photographer I am able to use new and amazing tools to bring my visions to reality on paper like never before. And the collector has a piece that can withstand the test of time, hundreds of years. Becoming a multi generational heirloom, not simply a beautiful photo to hang for a season of life. And all this can been be done in environmentally friendly ways that photographers of yore could not have dreamed of.