Artist Statement

Art started for me before I knew what art was. While spending summer mornings on Keuka Lake in New York State, I’d always tell my Grandma to look at the clouds. And one day she handed me her 35mm film camera, showed me how to load it, and I shot a whole roll of clouds. When Grandma developed them, she said out loud “I never saw that in the sky that day. How did you capture that?” 

I do what I do because I see the way that I see. And then I show it to others, so that they may see what was right there, but in a different way. 

I currently work in both digital and film photography. My digital setup is an Olypmus Pen-F micro 4/3rds sensor camera body with multiple Olympus and Panasonic lenses. I also own and use a Nikon EM 35mm film camera that my mother gave me from 1979, usually with a 50mm lens. Some of my favorite cameras to use are Holgas, plastic toy cameras that were made popular in Asia throughout the 1980s and 90s, and then mainstream in the USA in the 2000s. I usually shoot 120mm medium format film through those, although in a pinch I can use 35mm in those as well. 

I relish my time in the darkroom. Digital photography has allowed me to advance with the times. It has also afforded me easier ways to explore more difficult shooting scenarios, like the night sky. However, film photography will always produce that nostalgia I’m chasing. Much of my current work explores the Western Landscape and the Night Sky, my natural environment. I choose to shoot these in ways that evoke nostalgia and a sense of time. My color choices; bold, punchy blues and split tones, bring the viewer to a surreal setting in their mind. I take what is there in front of me, and alter it into a far away dreamscape.