Nature nominee

Years ago, when I took the Meyers-Briggs personality test, it confirmed that, of the modes of orientation described by Jung, my principal mode is intuition. That faculty is, in a sense, an ability to see what is dark to the conscious mind. The same might be said of imagination. As Shelley wrote: "It is necessary to imagine what we know." Many of the artworks that I love are marked, visually as well as spiritually, by the shining of light into dark places: for instance, paintings by Goya and Beckmann in, films by Ingmar Bergman, photographs by Bill Brandt. Brandt often took photographs at night or in deep shadow, or he used darkroom techniques to make it appear as though he had. I’ve often produced such effects with flash, high speed synchronization, multiple flash units, fast shutter speeds, digital darkroom controls. But though the techniques are sometimes complex, my aim is lighting that feels natural, unobtrusive, albeit dramatic. And even if the subjects of the images are trees (as they are in this series) or inanimate objects, I want to bring out the character, the resonance, the life that’s manifested in them, or that might be manifested through them.

Received Master of Fine Arts degree from University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Photographs have appeared in publications including The Photo Review (Philadelphia, PA) for its 2019 International Juried Competition; COLOR Magazine (Merit Award), Shadow & Light Magazine (Santa Fe, NM) (Single Images Showcase), F-Stop Magazine (Chicago, IL; 9 issues), Tricycle, others. Work selected for juried exhibitions of PhotoPlace Gallery (Middlebury, VT; 12 exhibitions), Praxis Gallery (Minneapolis, MN; 7 exhibitions), Black Box Gallery (Portland, OR; 12 exhibitions), The Atlanta Photography Group Gallery (Atlanta, GA; 6 exhibitions), A Smith Gallery (Johnstown, TX; 7 exhibitions), Center of Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO; 2 exhibitions), New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain, CT; 3 Exhibitions); and many other venues. Work selected for nine Honorable Mentions (Amateur) of the Fine Art Photography Awards between 2015 and 2021; for three prize nominations in the 2021 International COLOR Photography Awards; for an Honorable Mention in Fine Art-Other in the 2015 International Photo Awards; for the 2019 International Juried Exhibition of the Center for Photographic Art (Carmel, CA); and for the 2019 OPEN Juried Exhibition of the Center for Fine Art Photography.