The work below is from the body of work, “Digital Narrative,” a series of images that combine domestic imagery, still life, social environments and nature in landscape form. The works are predominately panoramic constructions that borrow ideas from numerous sources. These images are placed here edited from the most current work as I make them. Exhibiting the images in this way gives a clearer sense about my working process and the way in which I move from theme to theme. It is difficult to exhibit work in this way because of the many shifts from theme to theme, but this is the way I work and how I am looking at the images in my studio or on the computer. I try to add new work every week. This is not always possible but I want the work to change regularly as close to real time as possible. This blog is the result of wanting to look at works as they are made rather than when printed or exhibited.
I like to think of these images as photographic drawings, often quick assemblages posing question about the interface between people and nature, people and environment or people and people and daily life.
Working Proofs:
Many of the works in this series are made driving to and from planned destinations. It doesn’t really matter where I am. This photograph was made on a trip in a van with students heading to Mc Laughlin Reserve in Central California. Photographing in the middle of active events is helpful to my work. The images I make do not often resemble the actual situation. This image is an indication that a new set of ideas, and directions are forming.
This was made while hiking with Artist Lisa Kairos, who was walking the circumference of the San Francisco Bay by degrees. She was photographing, sketching, taking in the landscape for a series of drawings and paintings inspired by these walks. This beach was in Richmond, CA at the north end of the east bay trails.
Many of the poetic works contain images from very different locations; here a mall in Fort Collins, Colorado, The Aero Space Museum in Washington D.C., and a road photo driving cross country west to east, Ft. Collins to Washington D.C. The set concerns the relationship of images rather than the content of an individual photograph.
Compiled from photographs taken on a sola hike while on a field four day field trip with students to Big Creek Reserve, Big Sur, California.
Rest stop at Bixby Bridge, Big Sur. Traveling in a van with Karolina Karlic and students to Big Creek Reserve. I often photograph in very public situations and organize abstract visual narratives in private in the studio or on other travels. I am inspired in public situations or in groups sharing ideas or experiences. The final pieces are reflections of my thoughts and questions regarding the collective culture around me.
Bixby Bridge, Big Sur, CA, The National Gallery, Washington D.C.
This is an indication of a new body of work emerging.
I take every opportunity for travel that allows photography. I was helping a friend move his daughter’s college belonging from storage in Fort Collins, Colorado to Washington D.C. This images joins a significant group of photographs within “Digital Narratives” that were shot from the car. It is so easy to be overly formal when photographing. Photographing from the car increases the ”accidental aesthetics” that is necessary to further my work.
There is a growing series of pieces from inside museums. Museums, along with other monumental human constructions, physical or conceptual are important cultural sites for expanding experience and ceremonial sharing. Museums of all kinds, ballparks and other sports arenas, aquariums, National Parks, Disneyland and other theme parks are significant sites for studying the diversity of engagement and human achievement within our culture.
Driving back from Mc Laughlin Reserve.
I have photographed at recitals in Grass Valley before on several occasions, but haven’t been very interested in the outcome before. My grandsons take singing lessons and perform at these events. A good percentage of my photography is in similar situations, family events, domestic living situations or working in very familiar surroundings.
As is evident looking through the work as it is posted one of the primary subject interests is domestic home life. This is a late brunch this past weekend in Nevada City.
All of my printing is done in the studio at UCSC. The studio also provides space to work on still life ideas, integrating them with my interest in landscape concerns.
This construction was made from images made during a trip to the Mojave Desert with a class from UC Santa Cruz. Some of the most important images that I make are on the way to destinations. This is a site that I have done a lot of shooting. It is a consistent rest stop on the way south. April/May 2016
From a walk on the San Francisco Bay Trail in April 2016. This has a similar feel to the earlier image, Bay Architecture that you can see if you scroll down a bit.
This is a more experimental piece. The individual images were taken in a variety of places, Santa Cruz, Nevada City and at home.
MARCH 2015
This piece is likely to be associated with a group of landscapes that are related to a spatial poem by Yosa Buson 1716 – 1784.
A mountain ant
on a white peony
out in the open
