2008 STATEMENT

These images are not meant to be about me so much as they are meant to be about the objects I am photographing. Some of my past work was much more connected to how I see the world and trying to find my place in it. I used the landscape to represent that journey. But now I am thinking a lot less about the landscape and treating the images more as portraits. Within a lifetime there are so many extraordinary moments of being. What if all of those moments were compressed into a single frame? How do u visually represent the sum of those moments? These are some of the questions I am wrestling with and ultimately trying to figure out in these pictures. Obviously what I see is dark. A friend of mine suggested the work was a sign of the times and of the economy. I thought this was funny though not quite accurate. But the more I think about it, the more I think maybe the work is a reflection of what I see and the work is more about me than I realize.

2006 STATEMENT

"Some people see things as they are and ask why? Others dream things that never were and ask why not?" -George Bernard Shaw

I have always been interested in the subjectivity of seeing. Like looking at inkblots or watching clouds. Visually I try to construct my images in a metaphorical and abstract way so that the viewers imagination if free to explore and derive there own thoughts and conclusions independent from my own. Which is why up until this point the protagonists of my images have been plant life. I like to use flora because for the most part it has no singular inherent meaning. And what meaning a particular species may have is typically not universal to all cultures or regions.

The versatility of plant life as subject is crucial. It allows me to play upon the basic themes that I construct each image around. Every time I pick up the camera I’m thinking about; life, death, hope, and conflict. Hope is the possibility for something else, not necessarily something better and yet not necessarily something worse. Whether one is better than the other depends on one’s perception. It’s the uncertainty of the situation that gives the image tension and creates conflict. A lot of the time I’ll try to accentuate this by my use of competing elements within the composition and/or contrasting colors.

It’s very important that all of the elements of the image are real. The colors, scratches, and props all exist on set. I like the idea of taking the real and arranging it in such a way that reality is visually distorted, but not structurally. Because in truth my images are real places that did exist at one time, though they looked nothing like what you see now.

I choose to shoot with a 6x6 Hasselblad 503cw and a 120 CF macro planar lens. I choose medium over large format because the handheld freedom of the camera allows me to move around the set much more easily while still maintaning an excellent negative size. There is so much back and forth in the composing and adjusting of the set in response to what I see behind the lens, that the Hasselblad allows me to accomplish this much more easily without distraction.