Glass: Realism to Abstraction

Glass: Realism to Abstraction is an ongoing project that allows me to control light plus composition to create art that is not otherwise apparent in real life. This project started with the death of my only child and my desire to avoid the holidays. A cruise in 2007 allowed me to explore the book “Light, Science and Magic” and I was enthralled with the explosion of creativity that followed. I could conceive, construct and capture images of inanimate objects of various shapes, colors and textures either semi-solid or translucent with their reflections that together represented my private vision.

Photographing glass and its reflections, creating abstractions from simplicity to pure indulgence in subject matter, while adhering to the principle that light illuminates and shadows define, led me to this metaphysical exploration of reality.

Discovering Blackstone Square

I moved to the South End of Boston almost seventeen years ago from Lexington, Massachusetts, a bucolic suburb of Boston that is known for its beautiful landscapes, lovely homes, and historic sites. It took some time to adjust to life in Boston, with its dense population, minimal outdoor play space, and sometimes deafening street noises. Over time I have developed a totally different definition of what is beautiful in Boston—with its compelling energy; unexpected and constantly changing views; and parks full with people speaking many languages, prancing dogs, and bench-resting individuals. Nothing is static; the vitality is infectious.

This body of work depicts one South End neighborhood park, Blackstone Square, from many points of view and at different times of day and weather conditions during the year. The park represents for me the pulse of my neighborhood. I am drawn by its intrigue and mystery, by puddle reflections after a rainstorm and from a fountain pool at sunrise. Park railings no longer keep me out but rather beckon me to come inside.

Blackstone Square is never the same. The light and the park drama continuously change. The dynamism is hypnotic, particularly through the lens of a camera that captures ever-new perspectives.

Spirituality and a Sense of Place: The Quabbin Wilderness

The “accidental wilderness” that surrounds the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts is known for its history and natural beauty, but in addition, a more elusive quality, it’s spirituality. I’ve been photographing throughout that wilderness for the past seven years. My work there began with a documentarian-like objectivity. That approach collapsed rather quickly. While scientific and cultural analyses are critically important to understanding this invaluable resource, it became clear to me that that was not my role. What drew my attention and kept me coming back was the almost tangible spiritual nature of the place.

That spiritual sense is visible in a number of ways but these images focus on the shoreline. There, the water and the forest meet in a symbiotic union. The water is there because the forest is there, and vice versa. That union was created by human intervention intended to protect and naturally filter the water. It has been left to itself for many decades. Overtime, the unmanaged interaction between the water and the forest, aided in part by the numerous beavers that work there, has left us with a powerful visual statement. This is so striking to the few people who venture there. The isolated Quabbin shoreline reveals something about what happens when civilization steps away from a place. If one is to understand the spiritual nature of the Quabbin wilderness, it seems essential to begin the quest here.

These images are all from the Quabbin Reservoir watershed area, taken over the past seven years. The locations vary, but they are all from the areas behind the Dam and the Dike that sit on the south end of the Reservoir. They were taken with an infrared digital camera. The black and white renditions were created in software, and printed on archival photo paper.

Phototransformations

Much of my current photographic work involves transforming my own photographs into abstract geometrical designs, bright colors, and textures, sometimes rendering the originals unrecognizable. The finished work often looks more like painting than photography, but with uniquely digital layering and texturing. Frequently I shoot with future transformations in mind, although I often simply experiment. I hope to engage the viewer with something satisfying while provoking questions related to what exactly something was and how it might have become what it is.

The work shown here and on the show’s website is based on architectural elements. “Turquoise Window” and “Horizontal Windows” each started as simple, unadorned windows on a stucco building in Argentina. “Structure” began as an abandoned cinderblock fish plant in Newfoundland. Each of these three images emerged from a single photograph.

Memory Lines

I have long held an interest in photographing domestic spaces. Lives are lived out within the spaces that we dwell—the details of our stories and emotions all emerge within the sphere where we create both space and identity. When my son was born four years ago, my relationship to my home—to the light, space, and time within it—changed dramatically; time crawled by in the early hours of the morning as I watched the sunrise and the light dance around the walls of my home. The different times of day and the quality of the light I experienced provoked strong emotions— a shadow could turn from daunting to comforting within a matter of minutes. During this time, my relationship with photography changed as well; no longer able to take my camera and go on long walks looking for pictures, I began imagining and experiencing photographs everywhere in my home, only occasionally taking my camera outside to make an image. This confinement of space pushed me inward and sharpened my eye towards recognizing the details of my environment and the underlying emotions they evoke.

I have brought this heightened awareness of light, space, and self, into the groupings of images that make up “Memory­­ Lines”. These sequences mark the passing of time, while revealing small moments from the stories that have been built, and the traces of things that have been left behind. Sometimes dreamlike, sometimes more direct, I use myself as a subject and a constant to lace together the spaces, objects, and images that inform the way my memories are shaped and recorded.

Lost Memories, the abandoned Lincoln Amusement Park of Dartmouth Mass

My work on the abandoned Lincoln Amusement Park was the culmination of a long photographic interest in urban decay and the mix of message and graphic artistry created by our graffiti underground.

I found profound sadness in this fenced-in relic that had become the canvas for a talented graffiti community to express their longings and regrets. For me, the pictures carried a nostalgic look at what had once been a place of happiness and carefree fun, but was now cloaked in decay and loss.

This work began with a life long interest in Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and abstract expressionism. It evolved into a focus on the complex messaging sent out by graffiti artists and then by advertising messaging, and the odd images represented in our consumer hungry world. What are we saying about ourselves as a society in these objects and images?

Quondam

Quondam from the 16th century Latin, meaning formerly. The past is something that I find myself constantly searching for and examining. The work in this collection represents an homage to the photographs and photographers known as the Pictorialists. Once considered the first international style and aesthetic movement in photography, the core of the Pictorialist movement thrived from 1860 until 1915 and then started to wane, with some work still being done up until the 1940s. The mission of the movement was to represent truth and beauty of subject matter, tonality and composition rather than the documentation of reality.

All of these images were taken with a thirty-five year old camera that uses no battery and no electrical components. To further achieve the antique look of the Pictorialists, long exposures were used to create the feeling of movement and atmospheric effects in nature that are present in some of the images

This project runs head on into the 21st century when the negatives produced are scanned into my computer and then digitally processed, ending with a tonal application that has the appearance of a platinum/palladium print, one of the traditional printing methods of the time.

During the height of the Pictorialist movement around of the turn of the century, artists of the Linked Ring in Great Britian, the Photo Club in Paris, the Kleeblat in Germany and Austria and the Photo-Secession in the United States used Pictorialism to promote photography as Fine Art. Some of the most well known Pictorialists include Henry Peach Robinson, Peter Henry Emerson, Frederick Evans, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Gertrude Käsibier, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz and Clarence White.

The Light You Cannot See

Looking for new ways to make images, I became interested in alternative photographic processes. Although I always find myself attracted to a similar kind of subject matter: old abandoned buildings, and houses, things old and forgotten, I wanted new ways to see it. Infrared, photography shows the world in different ways. Infrared light is just beyond the visible spectrum, so the human eye cannot see it. You can have a camera converted to infrared, by having the sensor changed. When you are looking through the viewfinder it will look the same as always, but the camera will see it differently, so the result is always a surprise. I like the mystery.

When taking photographs using infrared cameras, we are exposed to a world that can often look very different from that we are accustomed to seeing. Colors, textures, leaves and plants, human skin, buildings and other objects can reflect infrared light in unique and interesting ways. The results are sometimes ominous, and sometimes, fanciful and airy. Skies become dark and clouds take on special emphasis. Sometimes the image appears grainy. Plants can appear light or white. I like the drama of these images in black and white. In this series I am looking both at both landscape and architectural subjects.

This is the beginning of a journey I hope to continue.

The Shadow Knows

I love morning shadows. Because they are areas from which sunlight has been blocked, shadows are ephemeral. Their shape and length depends on the changing elevation angle of the sun and on the objects that are obstructing its rays.

On the earth and snow that are within my view, these shadows are like painted silhouettes making me aware of buildings, trees, and people that are often beyond my gaze. The morning light and the shadows it casts are visually evocative and abstract, predicting the elusive and ever changing challenges of the coming day.

My landscape photographs incorporate these shadows in simple, subdued compositions of natural elements and classic, sometimes vacant, buildings. The early hour, the illusion that I am the only witness, the exclusion of complicating elements from the frame, and the shadows combine to impart a surrealistic impression of a fleeting moment in time.

Arches

I am drawn to these simple and perfectly conceived spaces and love to wonder through those that are open to the public. Recently I was wandering around a still inhabited monastery and a rather worldly and erudite monk invited me behind a barricade so I could get a closer look at the newly restored murals as he set the refectory tables for lunch. He shared that he had come to this otherworldly beautiful place from his home in Holland “for the beauty.” I instantly understood.