People nominee

When my father was dying, he saw things I could not see. Perhaps near death, the veil between the living and the dead is very thin. I wanted to show the spirit world as my father may have seen it. These photos are from a Day of the Dead event where participants remember and honor ancestors and wear costumes and masks or paint their faces. I sought out dim lighting to set the mood. I used in-camera techniques to make the revelers seem like other-worldly spirits. "Priestess Spirit" presides over the spirit world and determines the fate of souls. "Tormented Soul" shows the anguish of the damned. "The Infiltrator" shows a living man who is following his wife beyond the grave and joins her spirit parade, perhaps as my father did. "Golden Girl Spirit" lets us believe that hope and beauty exist on the other side. "Tuba Blast" provides some wake-the-dead music. Together, these images form the Spirit Processional.

Photographs expose the photographer. How and what I shoot tell you what interests me and catches my eye. The joy I feel in photographing something odd or making an unconventional cropping decision should tell you that novelty excites me and I have a rebellious streak. You'll see many genres in my work because variety is fun! Some of my artistic goals are to create work that is unique, creative, fairly attractive, well-composed, personally challenging, and demanding that you, the active viewer, make an effort.

I like to make the familiar a bit unfamiliar, the overlooked interesting, and you aware of far more than Seven Wonders of the World. Although I can capture the pretty, I'd much rather show you the slightly disturbing and off-kilter. Why is that? Because we both could use some mental exercise and glimpses of the seldom seen.

For me, black-and-white is generally somber and takes itself too seriously; however, vivid color has the potential to convey happiness. You might think that the saturated colors in many of my photos indicate childish exuberance; actually, it is one way I attempt to combat low-level depression.