Three Wet Kids

I was going through some old things recently and came across this photograph, Three Wet Kids. I think it was taken in '88 or '89 while living in Michigan, just before moving to Switzerland. These children were on their own and spoke little English. It's out of focus and harshly lit, but I like it.

I read an article on one of my favorite Photographers, Richard Avedon, where Avedon describes a photograph he made while on vacation in Sicily... "Technically amateurish, an almost unprintable negative, but from the moment I took it I had some inarticulate sense that the image mattered to me. There was something autobiographical about it- in that boy, his smile, his overeagerness, and his shoulders thrown back so violently and vulnerably." That's how I felt with these three kids, turning their gaze briefly, curiously, toward me before running back down the beach. It was a fleeting encounter but has endured in my memory and still speaks to me of strength and vulnerability.

I have learned to pay attention to images that matter to me, to acknowledge they are important without knowing why.

Urban Graphic

I am working on an Urban Graphic Series, a graphic approach to urban street photography. The photographs I've collected for this series were taken mostly in my home town of Seattle. I use my camera to collect digital photo-sketches of urban life that express moments of clarity within a visually chaotic scene. For me they are visual haiku, distilled images that cut through the clutter and noise.

Graphic Color

My eye naturally leans toward subjects where color or a strong graphic structure dominates. I think about balance and perspectice when working with an image and I have an aversion to visual clutter. I value brevity and simplicity, much like the form of poetry I'm drawn to most often is Haiku.

In the image shown here, I have used color as the predominant element of design. The bright red wall of the fish tank overtakes the strong, graphic lines and contrast of the composition. I think it's because of the basic, primal level that red seems to operate on. I couldn't get away from thinking about the fish, once lively and flashing through the waters of the Sea of Cortez; now on ice. One juror said it was "effective and strange with the red, black and white strength and the fish upside down with eyes wide open."

People Shadows

When it comes to photographing people I am somewhat of a coward. The direct opposite of paparazzi, I seem to always choose an oblique angle or shoot into the shadows people cast so as not to be too intrusive. It's partly to avoid the legal issues involved with photographing people and obtaining model releases, etc. But I think it's also to do with the way I see things; the way I tend to break an image down into negative space and the elements of design. This gives me a much less literal approach to my subjects. I look for the shapes and angles in the shadows that loosely define the human form. They seem to be both solid and ethereal; mysterious entities with lives of their own. I think of Carl Jung's treatise on the importance of integrating our shadow selves; or Balinese shadow puppetry where the spiritual is given theatrical expression and the shadowy shapes define the characters.

Window Shopping

Window Shopping is a series I've been working on, a collection of things in shop windows. They represent the transient, illusory nature of our material world and the desires that emerge from it.

Window Shopping is a metaphor for the never ending pursuit of fulfillment, of goals that change like seasonal window displays, catching our eye and feeding into a vague sense of longing. Objects of desire, seen in shop windows, are like moving targets. We can't seem to pin them down or make them last. We can possess them briefly, but once possessed they lose their magic.

In Sanskrit there is an ancient piece of wisdom, "Tat Tvam Asi", which translates in English to "Thou Art That". I describe it as a bridge that helps us reach the realization of unity. Whether molecules happen to be arranged this way or that way, a human being, a white dress, a piece of glass; we are all essentially the same stuff and very much connected.

There is a scene from a popular movie in which the main character has just arrived in Rome. The light is reflected on her face and as she takes in the beauty around her, she embodies peace in that moment. She seems to have slipped into a kind of daydream; a merging of what only moments ago seemed two separate realities.

Moments like these are gifts that reveal the illusion of 'this vs. that', of 'me vs. not me'. They point to new possibilities that lie just beyond our conditioned patterns of perception.

If I look into a shop window, I see many things behind and reflected in the window glass, including myself. Who's to say where one leaves off and the other begins? Maybe the universe is like a Venn Diagram, with three parts... a shaded portion that intersects with everything and falls within our perception, unshaded portions that are not always perceived but still have boundaries and an infinite portion that spills outside of the diagram itself.

Abstract Shadows

My abstract studies in shadow, pattern and reflection come from a peculiar way of seeing, of always being drawn to the light and serendipity of a scene. Angles of light interfacing with solid shapes create a lot of interesting visual phenomena.
Abstracting from reality is a visual exercise; a probing into the dynamics of pattern, shadow and reflection. I look for repeating shapes, unusual points of view or a fortunate presentation of elements in a scene. I sometimes extract my subjects from their ordinary context to create ambiguity. I like the challenge it poses to our sensibilities, our need to make sense of the world.

Blue Buddha

There is a bonsai garden about 30 minutes away from our home in a small town with not much more to offer than a gas station, a gun shop and a strip club. I decided to go there one day, with my camera, hoping to find a fortunate location for photos.

I found the garden in the midst of a construction site. The first thing I noticed were stone Buddha statues, lined up like sentinels in front of the gift shop. They were beautiful. Then, I entered the garden, which appeared to be in need of maintenance. The paths were strewn with debris and the plants seemed to be struggling. The place had a neglected quality that left me feeling uneasy, especially when I leaned over a rain barrel and saw a dead rat floating in the water.

Then I turned the corner and there was a pond filled with water lilies. Again, beautiful. I thought of the lotus blossom and what it symbolizes in Buddhist culture; the soul's journey through the mud of materialism, through the waters of experience and into the bright sun of transcendence.

I got this shot, Blue Buddha, on my way out. According to Buddhist scripture, Blue Buddha is the Buddha of medicine and healing, the color blue symbolizing coolness, infinity and ascension.