ArtTech

Photography

I come to art and art education via photography. My earliest memory of wanting to be an artist is wrapped up with cameras and photographic picture-making. These pictures are a selection from my various practices:

As a commercial photographer I worked for ad agencies and stock image companies. My specialty was lifestyle, which basically meant photographing kids and families in environments that felt natural and "real"... though on set, every detail was arranged. I closed my commercial studio in 2008.

I've always been interested as much in the process of picture-making, as in the pictures themselves. These are collaborations with my sons, from a series called Imagining Pictures, made in the early 2000s.

I went to Beijing in 2005 in order to explore art and meet fellow artists and university faculty. The experience was mind-bending in a million ways — among the many unexpected realizations I had during the that time was the certainty that I didn't know what was going on. I wanted to make pictures that acknowledged that confusion. These pictures of Chinese "tourist" ceramics were made with a flatbed scanner; for me they are about the confusion and wonder of my experience in China.

These last are from a series called Breathing Pictures. They are made by layering many different frames on top of each other, but without any (or very little) retouching. The result is a kind of visual vibration that shows slight shifts in perspective introduced by the movement of the world in front of my camera.

ESC closes this window.