Statement

On a scale from the mundane to the spectacular I prefer to work on the left, where the unforeseen tends to pop up.  Here’s how it often happens: in a given light, something attracts me, suggests that a photo is possible.  I can put that something in the periphery of my attention, for it will be there (although if it is moving I have less time).  Next, I scan the scene forensically and emotionally to see what narrative or other connections, relationships are discernable.  That done, I position myself to exclude the inessential, while ordering static and any moving elements to create the most compelling arrangement.  Much more quickly done than said.  Arrangement/structure accomplishes a couple of things.  First, it creates within the photograph’s borders a kinesthetic web of tension, sometimes stabilizing, sometimes not.  For an analogy I look to dance or jazz.  Second, when it works, it tends to regulate the time and sequence in which the elements shown will be seen and experienced.  Photography, after all, is simply a process of transmitting data as experience.

My criteria for exhibition are my extended involvement and perceived linkages within and among bodies of work.  My groupings aim toward visual coherence while avoiding redundancy.  Simply, when voting among a handful of equally favored images, if one contains a formal or thematic element found elsewhere, it will likely be elected.  Overall, I’m trying to find and display connective tissue that might lead me to some kind of unified field theory about myself and the world before my camera.  The outcome will also be measured by the degree to which the viewer will see and intuit this, and if my photographs will inhabit their mental and visual world when they leave the gallery or book.