Organic Photography

One of the things that was discovered in my progression as an artist through the benefit of my colleagues was the created landscape of "From Dust." The turbulent, rolling nature of the happenstance negatives, the diffusion of light from crisp edge to blurred fade, all lead to an ultimate understanding of the creation of a contextual landscape in which the raven flies to its ultimate disintegration. After "Crossing Over" I was again interested in shooting someone, but in the style of Edward Weston, Ruth Bernhard, or even the Brooks contributor Christopher Broughton, I wanted this time to create a landscape of the human body. Again it seemed that accident played a roll as the camera that I used for the process, my grandfather's WWII field camera - a completely manual twin lens reflex, I accidentally double exposed one of the frames that should have been of my shoulder but instead became a superimposed image of my shoulder and my back, with the raven tattoo I have

Last Thursday was the First Thursday show for the graduating MFA class. Seven bodies of work hung in the Cota Street Gallery that are as diverse in approach and subject matter as they are in execution and personal style. It is a show that seems to marry these eclectic images with grace, courage, and infinite beauty. Today I was privileged to sit in on the project defense of one of these bodies of work. It was my goal to experience a defense, to learn more about this work, and to support my friend. I was not ready for the grace, poise, introspection, and courage of the presentation. It was stunning. In some ways I felt like I was out of place, though in truth the defense had been classified as "open." But I am so glad to have been there, to have seen that the defense is not something to be feared or anxious about, but rather to be embraced as another opportunity to reveal a layer about the work. Something precious and imperative. The work has always been stunning to