I create black and white photographic images. My photography has been described as “neo-classical”, and “with an edge”. I shoot primarily composition and light, with subject being the vehicle for telling the story. What I aspire to create is an image that tells a story that is both personal and yet universal and Is beautiful, both from a distance and yet keeps speaking the closer you get to it, My intuition controls the release of the shutter and then in the printing I allow the image speak to me of it’s final form.
I have been creating photographic images since 1968 when I borrowed my parent’s cameras, a Leica M4 and a Nikon SP. My father, though a writer, often shot photos professionally to go along with his work. I found it to be a creative process that I enjoyed passionately. For the first several years you didn’t see me without a camera. In 1970, when I moved to London, England, I bought a Canon FTQL and at the same time went to work for Redfern Colour Labs where I learned to do custom E4 processing. During this time I stayed exclusively to black and white photography using our black and white lab and borrowing others when I could find them. Subsequent years I continued to shoot black and white print images with only a 10 year break when my camera was consumed in a fire in storage, while I was in the mountains in the spring of 1974. During this time I have had work published in books and periodicals along with doing some contract work along with my art. I started showing my work in 1999 when I was able to save the money for a show at Central Wyoming College in Riverton, Wyoming. Since 1982 I have been shooting medium format along with 35 mm and since the mid ‘90’s I have been almost exclusively shooting medium format with an eye towards large format.
In all of these years I have had no real formal education in photography, though I have benefited from the knowledge of many other photographers in the more technical aspects. For me technique is a means to an end and of little consequence in itself. It is final image that is important to me and if technique makes it speak more strongly, then I use it. Images like smells and sounds are really quite elusive and at the same time persevering. I offer these images for all to taste and possibly be moved by, enjoy.
