My approach to image making is a meditative and contemplative one. It is an exploration of feelings as much as it is an exploration of what I am seeing. Exploring my surroundings I develop a feeling for the place, the quality of light, and the setting that I may want to photograph. As this process evolves over time, sometimes a few minutes transpires, sometimes a few hours, or more often times even days, it becomes very clear to me what to photograph, if anything at all. The more successful images manifest themselves when I have taken the time to settle into a place and find the solitude it has to offer. It is at this time I find myself seeing things that are special. Sharing these encounters with others, through my photographic images, is one of my greatest joys.
Biography
Born in 1949 in Brooklyn, NY, I received early exposure to art and artists through my father, a photo-realist painter/illustrator, with a studio in mid town Manhattan. I started making photographs in 1966 as editor of my high school yearbook, using a Rolliflex 120mm twin lens reflex camera. My current images are made with a Zone VI 8X10 wood field camera using old Goerz Dagor and Artar lenses. I make Silver Chloride contact prints from my negatives. I also produce Platinum/Palladium prints of select images in limited editions. I do not make photographic images to be enlarged, but see them as contact prints from the beginning.
After graduating high school, I studied fashion photography at the Fashion Institute Of Technology in NYC. As a student of commercial photography at The Art Center College Of Design, Los Angeles, California, I was introduced to and learned to master the use of large format cameras.
In 1999, I was awarded a scholarship to attend an intensive photographic workshop with Rod Dresser who was an assistant to Ansel Adams.
Other Creative Skills
Photography, Printmaking