Afterglow

This project began last autumn as the season was waning and winter was settling in. Diminishing daylight and colder days led me to turn inward and reflect.

The resulting photographs are a metaphor for the fluidity of relationships and the shifting stages of life. Decisions must be made, opportunities can be lost, but time isn’t always linear, and we come back to where we were.

I use form and content to reveal and conceal the emotions and transitions of the past and future: the gentleness of lingering light; a shadow kissing a house; the velvet caress of a flower; or an awakening breeze.

Although these portraits and images are personal, it is my intention that they offer a path to feelings and experiences that are universal in nature.

Projections

Many photographers talk about capturing light, although some would argue that light is, instead, just one of the tools that we use to craft our images. For these images, light was a voice, one that called to me as I walked down the street, or when I woke too early and went stumbling around an almost-dark house. The light told me to look, and where to look, but left it to me to come to an understanding of how much of the way I see the world is through the lens of the legacy of my childhood as a much-younger brother in a less-than nuclear family.

Sea Change

As I prepare to leave the New England shore, I feel an urgent need to study what will soon be out of easy sight – the northern seaside. In this project I capture the varied ways the ocean transforms in response to weather, it’s relentless fingering of the shore and worrying of stones, and it’s mingling with the sky, day to day. Sky, sea, and rocky earth. The tossing stones crackle with the change. 

Catching My Eye

I have a collection in my house. It isn’t the usual group of snowglobes or pebbles or china dolls. It grows in fits and spurts: objects are added after trips to the grocery store, whilst I am cleaning the basement, or when I return from vacation to discover a forgotten orange. All of the collection have ended up in front of my camera. Some things I photograph once, others appear again and again, transforming as they age.

In my studio, I find myself moving closer and closer, seeking to share what draws me in. A wrinkle here, a dent there: I am fascinated by the small details that make each unique.

The Paris I Know

This project aims to visually connect the physical and the metaphysical beauty of Paris, allowing the viewer to step into the image and then imagine what might lie beyond its boundaries. I’ve lived in and worked in the City for many years, but I haven’t often had the time to thoughtfully reflect on what it is that makes it beautiful. Paris is unique. The project helped me to see how the interrelationship of its buildings, bridges, people and the river that winds through it make the city the magnet that it has been for artists, writers and musicians.

The present selection examines how architecture, trees and people resonate to create the harmony that makes Paris so appealing to me. In the poetic geometry of the trees and paths, and buildings, even their interiors, I feel a certain continuity and peaceful calm. I’m able to take the time simply “to be”.  The interplay between this state of mind and the often rhyming, symmetrical visuals contribute to the beauty that I see and feel.

The Ripening

This project was inspired by the realization, in a visceral way, that I was indeed getting older and joining the demographic of aging women. This stark reality set in when I saw a musician from my past. Seeing the changes in her made me reflected my own. My thought was that she looks different and so must I. It made me be think about  the ways women experience  aging,  discrimination, invisibility, freedom, and acceptance. This project called The Ripening, is my expression of some of those facets through metaphor.

Patio Life

There is a mean-looking wasp sitting on the arm of a teak chair in my backyard patio. Every day the wasp visits. Why does it keep landing on the chair?

I want answers.

I live in a densely populated town in Greater Boston that is 5.5 square miles with 42,000 residents and an abundance of tiny, often unseen critters lurking in its yards—yards measured in square feet, not acres.

With a couple chairs and a few flowers, a small suburban oasis was created on the patio.

But those wasps…and these tiny spiders that seem to jump into thin air? What else is living around me?

I need answers.

The camera provides an up-close peak at my fellow patio dwellers whose respective behaviors pique my curiosity and intrigue me.

Whether planting a single container or large garden—you won’t have to travel far to find interesting neighbors if you look close enough.

If you plant it, they will come.

Johnsons Quarry

Granite quarries of Cape Ann are visual evidence of a once vital industry that employed hundreds and produced the granite building blocks of some of the nation’s most iconic buildings. This abandoned industry has left scars on the landscape: deep water-filled quarries, rusting machinery and tools, and the hand-hewn marks of laborers over the century.

The derricks, steel cables, drills, and tools at Johnsons Quarry are relics of excavations begun over 100 years ago. Recently, the grandson of the former quarry owner has decided to breathe new life into this site, revitalizing contracts with local stone-cutters. Newly cut stone, hand-hewn as in time past with drills and wedges, lies on top of massive granite blocks quarried decades ago.

I am drawn to the beauty and scale of the elemental landscape as a backdrop for the remnants of an industry unique to this place. By focusing on the artifacts, tools and hand-cut marks, this project honors the legacy of Johnsons Quarry stone workers both past and present.

Shadow Land  

While exploring different cities I noticed that there is one element of human behavior that does not change. The common thread is that, in all places, people congregate together. No matter what city I photographed in, the relationships between people never changed. It is human nature to want to categorize oneself as a way to identify with others. The interesting aspect for me however, was that although people grouped themselves in different ways based on their relationships, destinations and ethnic backgrounds, all of their shadows were cast the same. Whether they were riding bikes, holding hands, or walking with a group of friends, all of their shadows followed behind them like the personal life stories we each own. 

My intention of capturing the light and shadow of people moving through a city from a high vantage point expresses the view that people are like ants. There maybe multiple different colonies of ants that on the surface look very different from one another but if you look at them from a far they are really just ants existing in the same shadow land as us.  

The In-between 

What you say and what I hear is not the same.  

Simple communication easily becomes distorted. Most of what we try to convey remains a mystery. By the time I decode your message, my own experiences, values and emotions have warped its wished-for meaning.  

Even as my chosen words, however well-intended, flow from my mouth to your ears, I can see how imperfect they are. As they float to you, I want to catch them and try again. Distracted by your own thoughts – they are lost in the in-between. 

Misunderstood or misconstrued. What does it matter? 

I am not mechanically generating words – I speak with my heart, mind and beliefs, just as you do. Hidden under the layers, the inaudible wish to be understood is muted. There is no blame. Not on the sender or the receiver. 

These images were inspired by a magical trip into the desert to listen to music, an infant at The Perkins School for the Blind nicknamed “Jelly” and the vulnerability of love. The diptychs are intended to represent my own fractured ability to communicate all that is hidden beneath.