Artist Statement

Life is meant to be lived fully in each moment, soaking in the energy swirling around and noticing all the stillness which may never hold energy again. Breathing in the life blood and intimacy of each and every moment. Some moments hold us in the intricacies of life energy so intense that we become transfixed to a specific point, yearning to return our focus when we stray. Others, capture us in all the energy swirling around, so much so that we can’t help but ponder what is just beyond what we can see or perceive. In each moment, we all have the opportunity to live in the ever inspiring and life-giving energy present: to be fully present to the moment. Yet, in the era of the camera-phone, so many choose to separate themselves from all of these beautiful moments, focusing on capturing the present moment instead of living each moment.

Like a ballroom dancer, my photography is not one of separation from the present moment, but an intricate dance with the light and energy that surrounds and encompasses us all; dancing within the moment and transcending the notion of linear time. A complexity of light and energy, or lack thereof, exemplifies moments with grand themes: life, death, love, desperation, sensuality, joy, despair, grotesqueness, and beauty.  With that, I do my best to live each and every moment without fear and without shame. Not as someone separate and wrapped up in capturing fleeting moments, but as one who is intimately involved with the present moment and doing my best to dance as one within each and every moment given.

I do not photograph with ulterior motives in mind or at heart: money, fame, praise, etc. I photograph for the moment itself – for the photograph – without consideration of how it may be used.  Some critics suggest that I make photographs primarily to promote conservation, but such allegations are far from the truth.  Although my photographs may be used in this way, it is incidental to my original motive for making them: first and foremost to live a life of love that reflects the beauty and energy of our world, transcending time and creating the opportunity to live more fully in the present moment.  

The beauty of a photograph exists in its potential to transcend itself, the image and its medium, in order to have its own presence. Throughout the world it is generally accepted that abstract art refers to those works inspired by the imagination, outside the realm of reality. Within the realm of photography, in which images are produced from refracted light through a lens, such distinction is more difficult to sustain.  Taking into consideration the broadest sense of the term, an optical image is an abstraction from the natural world – a selected and isolated fragment of all the energy and light that is twisting, bending, and flowing on the other end of that lens.  When an image is self-explanatory and does not imply more than what lies within its framing, it is usually referred to as abstract. That is, independent of its surroundings: a pattern held on a rock, lichens, or grasses.  Yet when one steps back from such subjects, taking in the wider “scenic view” of framing, and the composed image invites the reader into the vast expanses of the world that lay beyond the confines of the lenses framing: evoking a more realism or expressionism. Both styles conveying a work of art whose form and content are organic (real) to the source in that moment.

Taking the opportunity to photograph the world and all its diversity tends to be either centripetal or centrifugal. When focusing on centripetal through the lens, all elements of the image converge toward a central point of interest to which the eye is repeatedly drawn.  The centrifugal photograph is a more lively composition in which the eye is led to the corners and edges of the image: the observer is thereby forced to consider what the photographer excluded in the selection. Ultimately, to be successful as a work of art, the image must be pleasing, convincing, and transcend notions of time; leaving the observer completely immersed in the bending of light that is captured through a lens: representational or imaginary. Every part of the image contributing to the unity of all things in the moment, bending light and energy through the lens.