Statement
The primary concern of all my work is beauty. The photographer Robert Adams writes in his essay Beauty in Photography, “If the proper goal of art is Beauty, the Beauty that concerns me is that of Form... Why is Form beautiful? Because I think it helps us meet our worst fear, the suspicion that life may be chaos and that therefore our suffering is without meaning.”
Beauty can be found in the artifacts of all cultures even if it has recently become suspect in some circles by those interested in using art for didactic purposes. Yet for me Beauty remains central. A work of art is successful if it shows the person viewing it a Beauty they had not seen before. This is less about novelty, which in our image saturated world probably does not exist, and more about seeing the everyday in a new light. Whatever the subject of the work shown here in other words, whatever these images depict, this work is about form and tone and movement. These things, not a particular landscape or species of fish are what I aim to document. As the artist Ian Roberts writes subject matter is nothing more than an armature supporting a deeper vision. In this way, my aim is to produce photographs that transcend their subject matter.
To form, tone, and movement, I have lately tried to add an element of evanescence to my work, something I believe that is unique to photography as a visual art. We see it in fleeting moments of light, gesture, and motion. It is present in Cartier-Bresson, in diCorcia's well known Times Square images and, in Joanne Verberg's portraits of her husband. Singling it out addresses very directly, the problem of chaos Adam's writes about because it allows us to see the Beauty that inheres in change, which is, of course, the fundamental condition of all existence. Jazz improvisation does much the same thing, and I am equally drawn to it.
For me, the physicality of a photograph, its status as an object in the world, is part of this. A photograph should be something one can call upon as a reminder of the existence of the Beauty that goes unnoticed. In this way, a photograph, or any work of art for that matter, should appear as new to the viewer each time he or she encounters it framed on the wall in a hallway, or in a folio when it is taken out and studied. While a photograph will never have the permanence of a work of sculpture, its physical nature serves to underscore its own importance and more than that, the importance of noticing.
A Note on Process and Technique
Most of my work involves serendipity, whether in the chance arrangements of an in-camera double exposure or the fortuitous availability of a camera when the light happened to fall on a surface in just the right way. That said, my more recent work has been done with greater intention, if only that I have gone out with a camera when I thought conditions might be right to capture the sort of arrangement of shapes and tones that interest me. Most were taken with a digital camera using a variety of manual prime lenses.
Some Background to a Few of the Series
New York Water
My interest in this series New York Water, originates from several places. First, I am fascinated by the hidden machinery of the modern age—the huge container ships that move goods around the world, the giant gantry cranes that handle the cargo they transport, the plants that provide electricity, the factories that transform raw materials into useful substances, the facilities that process their (and our) effluents. Though massive in scale, they are mostly hidden from the everyday life of the residential and commercial districts they surround. In photographing them, my goal is to make visible a portion of the infrastructure upon which we all depend.
My hope, however, is to offer more than documentation. Like the industrial landscapes captured by Bernd and Hilda Becher, this work seeks to blur the line between documentary and fine art photography. Extensive manipulation post-capture results in a minimalist look that uses water and sky as a canvas upon which to depict form, the central subject of all my work. And there is such a variety of forms one can see from the shore or from the deck of a ferry! Some shapes are rectangular, some are rounded. Some are regular, others show various protuberances and projections. Some are flat whereas others show patterns. Many combine all these elements.
Then of course there is the water itself. We think of water as something that is contained within a vessel, yet it is also a container itself, a container for an infinity of color, tone, shape and movement. I believe this may be why I have always been drawn to it.
Sintra
North of Lisbon, on the granite slopes of the Sierra de Sintra, King Ferdinand II of Portugal built his summer residence, the Pena Palace for his consort, the Countess Edla. I was drawn to the gardens that surround the palace by the feeling of mystery they evoke. Their pathways form a labyrinth of greenery where trees and shrubs, gathered from around the globe, seem to take on a life of their own. Following one or another of these paths may take one to a hidden grotto, a dramatic rock formation, or a pool where a swan glides silently across still water.
Removing the color from each image affords a view of the garden’s underlying structure. Printing them to emphasize the darker tones reveals their underlying mystery.
Calabria
These images were made over the course of several days in Canna, a hilltop village in Calibria. Every summer an international group of classical musicians gathers there for impromptu concerts and I was visiting to hear a friend’s wife perform. The musicians practiced and prepared for their recitals during the day giving me the chance to wander the piazzas and alleyways looking for compositions. Now that I think of it, several of the images in this group were taken on excursions away from the village, which ones however are lost to memory.
In the Kelp Forest
All of the images in this series were made at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town. I was drawn first to the colors and movement in the tank, which, open at the top to allow the sunlight in, created beautiful patterns in the water and on the tank's inhabitants. When I saw the pictures on the computer though, what struck me was the sense that like those peering into the tank from the outside, the creatures on the inside appeared isolated from one another and utterly lost. Endlessly swimming against an artificial current, they are unable to see the beauty that surrounds them. Without that vision their lives seem futile, consisting only of mindless instinct and dull habit. How like us they are.
Cloud Studies
The Cloud Studies series was conceived in the summer of 2019, a year that for some reason seemed to produce clouds that were particularly interesting. I was drawn both to their abstract qualities and to their transience. Photographing them is almost as challenging as capturing the decisive moment in a street scene. Clearly clouds possess the quality of form, they are their own thing. But at the same time, they are canvases for light. I have recently been drawn toward color work and for this interest, they are an ideal subject.
Underground
These images are all completely unplanned in-camera double exposures. They represent an attempt to break free of my predilection for perfect compositions. Expose one frame, point the camera somewhere else and expose another one. The New York City subway is the main subject though a few images were made in Grand Central Station.
About Me
I studied photography and printmaking at New York University and during a study abroad program in Provence. After graduating from New York University, I worked as an assistant to a well-known fashion photographer before opening my own studio on 18th street in Manhattan. When it became clear, after a few years, that the life of a commercial photographer was not for me, I returned to the university to earn a doctorate in psychology and spent twenty years teaching and doing research work with not-for-profit organizations in New York and around the world. Though I continue to teach, I have made art making my primary focus going forward.