Artist Statement

My pursuit of photography, to move beyond the basic photography classes I had in college, started with travel photography. When I was sent to live in Hong Kong and work across Southeast Asia, I picked up a camera to document my boyhood dream to see the world.  I documented my travels across Asia over several years as my interest in photography grew. Upon returning home, I moved onto the streets of Los Angeles in pursuit of Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment.  

After eight or ten years, when I tired of the sameness in my street photography, I strayed from the conventional and experimented with motion blur and other manipulations. With the start of the pandemic and the lockdown, I stayed home and searched through my street images, to find and cut out the elements I used to make the fine art constructions I call Fictional Moments and Moments in Motion.  

With the easing of pandemic restrictions, I rediscovered the outdoors and the wonder and joy of photographing birds. Birds can be endlessly fascinating & beautiful, and the challenge of capturing birds, closeup in flight with a 600 mm lens, moved my practice of photography into the realm of an exhilarating sport.  

The pursuit of making photographs pushes me to examine things, animal & human behaviors, and physical phenomena, that I might not otherwise stop to look at and think about. Human behaviors that might be funny, ironic, poignant, or sad and physical things, like changing light, shadows, weather, and the tides.  

Photographing birds has become two distinct studies.  First, it is the technical photographic challenge of capturing birds in flight, grabbing their food, defending their territory, and fleeing in panic. Then there is the separate field of study, the birds themselves. There are so many species with different habits and traits, and migrations, and mating rituals. There is just so much to learn. To my surprise, I’ve become something of a tyro birder.

My favorite times of day to make photographs are dawns becoming early mornings. The changing sunlight with its softening intensity and long shadows marks the transition between night and day. There is a quickening pace of the birds and people moving across my frame as they transition from their nighttime to daytime lives. It is a time of beautiful light and increased activity. It is the perfect time to make beautiful and interesting photographs.