Statement

My current work includes an extended project shooting medium format aerial photographs of the Southwestern United States. This work currently involves photographs of copper mines, reservoirs, desert landscapes and desert cities. I began shooting aerials in 2001, collaborating with my son who is the pilot for the aerial work.

Weather and season have always played a large part in my work, and two inter-related series extend this involvement with the forces of nature. For the past several years, I have been working during the summer monsoon season in Tucson on an extended series of time exposures of developing thunderstorms. I have also been working every August since 2001 along the Northern California coast on a long term series photographing waves.

I have also been exploring the possibilities of digital layering and constructed realities since about 2000. Inspired by the double printing work of Frederick Sommer and also by his medical illustration collages, I have been working with layering negatives in the computer. One section of the work deals with near/far views of desert flora, weaving them together into a metaphorical space. I am also experimenting with weaving together aerial photographs of mines and more recently cities to create dense, chaotic compositions that mirror the chaos of both these places.

My most recent technical involvment is with the possibilities of digital capture and printmaking. While I still shoot large and medium format film for its as yet unequaled rendition of detail, I have found that digital is fast catching up as far as resolution, and that digital capture allows for exciting new possibilities of extended exposure and layering that are not possible on film. The new possibilities with digital printmaking are many, including a number of beautiful new paper surfaces which combine with the latest generation of pigment inks to create prints that equal or exceed traditional methods.