I started taking aerial photographs on May 27th, 2001. I know exactly, because it was the day my son got his pilot’s license. He took me flying, and our collaboration continues to this day. My son flies the plane: I look down, and with a sense of amazement at what I see, I take photographs.

One of the largest copper mines in the United States is less than ten miles from my home. From the air, this mine looks to me like the work of an abstract painter depicting surgery being performed on the body of the earth. The forms and colors I see revealed within the earth evoke forms I have seen in medical books; the veins and arteries of the earth.

My aerial work began with photographs of mines, but it has evolved to include photographs of desert landforms, reservoirs, and recently of desert cities. I find in all these places a landscape revealed, a sense of seeing the body of the earth.
What I seek in these photographs is not a document of destruction. Rather, I envision both a celebration of beauty and a talisman of understanding. What I hope to depict is the realization that the body of the earth is also our own body, both our source and our destination.