The Show

 

Water in nature is a powerful force. It sculpts canyons, defines rivers and lakes, smoothes and dissolves rocks, and makes possible all the flora and fauna on land and ocean.  It is truly permanence in motion.


We are intimately tied to water. Water covers 70% of our planet, and makes up about 60% of our body weight; we can only survive a few days without it.  Nearly all the great civilizations of antiquity grew up around water, as it supported agriculture, trade, transportation, and defense. Water appears in numerous creation myths, from Polynesia to Egypt to Japan to India; Noah was not alone on the waves.  


As an artist, I work to tell visual stories about the power, the wonder, and the beauty of the natural world through my landscape photography.  I want the viewer to feel what I felt as I pressed the shutter, and understand the spirit as well as the facts of that image.

I have turned my focus for this show to water, and the images that I have collected here are an important part of my current work.  They all feature various aspects of water, present in some way at the moment the image was first made. They are my best expressions of the many forms, moods, and effects of water, and I hope they transport you to the places where water defines the environment.


The settings for these images were Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, California, South Dakota, Delaware, New Jersey, and Hawai’i.  I’ve selected for this show those images which best present the many ways that water impacts nature - those which show water’s variety, passion, vibrancy and tranquility.


Most of the prints in this show are presented in black-and-white, which I see as storytelling in a pure and simple form. I make all my images digitally, and start by capturing all my photographs in color. It’s in the post-shooting processing that I’m able to experiment with alternative presentations of the images, and to look for ways to best connect the viewer with the heart of the image. 


In the last year, I have returned to black-and-white printing (which I had left quite a few years ago), due to the long-awaited availability of fine-art papers that can produce excellent black-and-white prints from the Epson printer I use for all my work. While the majority of my printing is still in color, I find that black-and-white printing adds another dimension to my storytelling, because it can remove distractions and let me focus on the form and movement in the image.


Many of these prints were not originally envisioned as black-and-whites, but the nature of the images emerged as I worked on them at my Mac Pro.  Others were taken with a monochromatic presentation in mind, and then refined in post-production. 


All of the prints were hand-produced by me, individually adjusted, toned, and printed on archival art paper.  Black-and-white printing adds some exciting challenges to the print-making process, and I have only recently reached the point where I believe my skills and the available technology can make black-and-white prints that are up to my standards for color prints. This exhibition is the first time I have publicly presented these monochrome images.


And there are some color images in the show, just because I love them in full color…


You can see more of my work at my Web site.