With my photography, I intend to explore beauty in both natural and built form. In an age where we are visually bombarded with excruciatingly well-rendered and detailed images, my intention is to create images that are more about evoking mystery or curiousity than reporting in detail. Hence there are veils on the nudes, natural subjects are rarely shown in full, and built forms are highly abstracted. This allows the viewer to participate and engage their imagination, and to hopefully evoke some connection and wonder regarding the image. For me, photography is quite often a form of meditation - a winnowing, reductive process intended to get to the essence of that which I see. At the same time, I savor the more improvisational spirit of just being in the world and capturing what intrigues me on a more spontaneous level. Either way - whether photographing with specific intention, or capturing what arises spontaneously, the connecting thread is an openness to what is there at the essential core: classically beautiful, raw and brutal, humorous, existential, serene.
Regarding "Exit Strategies":
The rhythmic geometries of metal fire escapes have long fascinated me. The structural zigs and zags, and the geometric ribboned shadows cast as the sun streams down on the metal slats, create a slowly moving abstract composition upon the building facade, sometimes for several hours. Even without these evanescent shadows, the fire escapes themselves are intriguing structural annotations - many of them added on to the exterior to comply with fire regulations amended long after architects had completed design and construction. In this sense, they are an obvious example of a kind of modular retrofitting.
My photographs are taken from the street level, but with a twist: the perspective is from underneath the fire escapes. Here the geometries compress, and abstract constructivist compositions are juxtaposed against the sky. The images are intentionally somewhat confusing and gravityless, in their own way evoking the feelings of bewilderment and disorientation one might feel when exiting during a fire or other emergency.
About the Trees Series:
My fascination with structure and natural form coalesces in these photographs. At once sensual and structural, my intentions are to capture strength as well as the natural, flowing lines, which at times evoke twisting, dancing movements.
Regarding the Nudes:
The nudes are mostly veiled and beribbonned. The pink ribbons are reminiscent of ballerina slipper ribbons - an ultimate icon of delicate femininity. At the same time, ribbons have connotations of packages, gifts, and the mentality in women to adorn and present themselves to the world - pink, feminine, objectified. The ribbons intentionally tread the line between wrapping and binding - the feminine form is at once celebrated and restrained. The veils are a softer, more transparent form of adornment/presentation/mystery.
The Portrait Project:
Since 2007, I have taken individual and family portraits of underserved communities. These portraits are then framed and given to the families and individuals free of charge, along with several snapshots. Please go to the "Links" page if you would like to donate to this community endeavor.