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The photographs in this exhibition are toned gelatin silver prints. The negatives are made using a plastic camera which I began experimenting with about five years ago. I was intrigued with the quality of the image it generated and have learned to use the vagaries of peripheral blurring, light flares, and edge igniting to impart the expressive qualities I desire.
These photographs act as talismans. The images of landscapes, trees, and ancient places are about time, space, place, beauty, and the eternal. They are also about reverence and devotion which seem to be in decline in our post-industrial 21st century culture.
The landscape interests me because it is elemental, the ground from which we come and go. It is our home base, our point of reference. I am looking to the landscape for the elegiac and eternal, for beautiful vistas, for moments seen and felt.
Trees without leaves seem so articulate they are vivid, expressive, skeletal, and elemental. Their roots reach down into the earth and their branches stretch up into the sky. They are silent witnesses. Trees in the summer are robust, full, fecund, and lush. Their leaves, dappled in the light, throw shadows on the earth as they dance in the wind.
Ancient places speak of those who came before. They remind us of the mightiness of time and past civilizations. Ancient places are power placesfull of mystery and majesty. To endure for so many thousands of years is remarkable in itself. We might well ask, "What traces will remain of our lives and history a thousand years from now?"
I seek delight in the photographic process and how it connects with what I perceive, feel, and wish to depict. The silver print is a beautiful way to make and present images. It is perfect because it literally captures light and time. The photographic process could be described as shedding light and stilling time. While an image is about a moment, it is also about the eternal present and past, a fraction of a second and eternity.
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