Fine Art nominee

The Nude at Home


I use the extreme wide angle distortions of the round oatmeal box pinhole camera and the digital colorization to create a series of visceral images. Through successive pulling of curves in Photoshop, B&W values are replaced with subtle color. The “Nude at Home” is a subset of a larger pinhole camera project begun in 1998. In this series, begun about five years ago, I photograph the model nude in her home, apartment or studio. With the model in her space, all the objects in the image are a part of the life of the model. Then the pose, the furniture and the long, two minute exposures reveal an intimate portrait of the subject.

I studied Photography from 1962 - 1967 at the Institute of Design and the Art Institute of Chicago from 1967 to 1970. I began photographing the nude with Wendy, my wife, while in graduate school. Then for over forty years I explored various techniques and processes while photographing the nude as a central theme.
I currently head the photography program at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

In 1998 I began to work with pinhole photography using an oatmeal box pinhole camera. With its extreme wide angle and distortion, the camera gives me results that are constantly a surprise. I develop the B&W negatives, scan them into Photoshop, and then colorize the image by pulling curves in each of the channels.

From January to February 2010 I had a solo show at the Photography Center of the Capitol District in Troy, NY. I showed over fifty images from ten diverse series made from 1990 to 2010. And in May 2013 I have a solo show, “Nude at Home”, twenty-six images made from 2003 to 2012 at the Barrett Art Center in Poughkeepsie, NY.