Technicolor Life: Artist Statement
Photography and music have both played significant roles in my life. Due to a partial loss of hearing, photography has now taken center stage. I embrace and use the camera as I once did the pedal steel guitar. It provides me an outlet to compose, perform and record.
As a self taught photographer, I am translating my knowledge of a musical language into a visual one. I’ve developed terms that describe images that excite me. Over the years I’ve come up with a number of these terms, that with practice I look for instinctively. The “Horizontal Stack” occurs when people, and/or objects, from both foreground to background, momentarily fall into one horizontal line. This takes rhythm and timing to see. A “Shadow Frame” forms when the light strikes a subject simultaneously creating a shadow that frames the subject. The bold, intoxicating contrast between these two elements creates a lighting dynamic that sings. The “Match” happens when an element in the frame is surprisingly repeated by a completely unrelated element. This visual vocabulary provides the structure I need and frees me to improvise.
Due to the nature of my work, split seconds count. Through experience, I have developed a flexible lighting system that gives me the technical framework I need to capture images quickly. This infrastructure minimizes technical distractions, allowing me to weave and float among the subjects, paying attention to the action in front of the lens. I have to be ready for anything. I do not construct my shots. There is constant movement all around; nothing is static. When I click the shutter, I am lead by gut and heart alone.
This series of photographs is part of a larger body of work, entitled “Technicolor Life”. They were all taken at weddings. In the world of wedding photography the obvious is front and center. However, I am not interested in the obvious. I am interested in abstractions and open narratives. Ultimately, I want my photographs to feel personal, alive and human.
