Inspiration is everywhere, and can come from anywhere. I notice beauty in odd places: a piling in a harbor, a railing in a parking lot, the stones in a wall. I try to capture what I see in a way that shows the beauty as intensely as I experience it.
My photography is about moments and memories. It’s as much evocative as representational. I rarely title my photographs*, particularly not the Railing series, because I want everyone to experience these images from their own personal point of view, without having their perception skewed by my own.
Here’s how I see things.
Editing details for the images above: Crow edited with Prisma app, filter “Winter”. (It really did have snow on its feet, though.) Harbor piling edited with various settings in Instagram. Railing image is un-edited except for cropping.
Special! Artomatic 2024
Did you see my work at Washington, DC’s Artomatic 2024? It has been up since March 3; show opens March 8 and runs until April 28. I have set up an Artomatic Installation gallery on SmugMug; all the pieces that are on the wall at Artomatic are in there. I would gently suggest not looking at the online gallery if you intend to go to the show in person. If you are interested in ordering pieces from the installation itself (i.e., the physical pieces that are actually on the wall at 2100 M Street), or ordering reprints, please check out the “pricing/how to buy” page.
*The pieces in my Artomatic installation all have title-stickers next to them, but that’s more about disambiguation and concrete descriptions versus choosing to see real things in an abstract image.
Ongoing and Past Series
The Railing: Appreciating and documenting the marks that skateboarders leave on a railing in Baltimore
Crowtime: Spending time with four consecutive broods of the same family of local wild crows
Scrying: Reflections from a rusty planter
Everyday Beauty: Mostly small or ephemeral things. (If you see a theme, I’d love to hear about it.)
P.S. I’ve been struggling with the word “photography” as a descriptor for my art. I don’t go looking for photos of majestic landscapes or the moment of a moonrise; I take moments from my daily life. I don’t own a camera that isn’t also my phone. The craft/skill/virtuosity aspect of photography—using a purpose-built camera with a strong awareness of lighting conditions, shutter speed, depth of field, etc.—is not something I have studied at all. I admire it intensely, but it’s not what I do.