Compelling images abound, waiting to be discovered. The landscape of Marin County, California, where I live, constantly changes with seasons, fog and time. Abstract art appears in an eroded boat hull, peeled paint on a truck or even kitchen tools. Evocative lines and curves emerge from seed pods, flowers, ceilings and staircases.
If something arrests me, I work to understand why, and then capture this core. I often compose my photographs with unusual subjects, ways of seeing, or vantage points, revealing something singular that could be overlooked or taken for granted. My impressionistic and abstract work conveys essence or emotion, rather than literal reality. To do this, I employ intentional camera motion, creative depth of field, subject isolation, shooting through fog, rain or windows, and imagination.
As the pandemic caused us to look inward, my work took an inward turn, toward the world of close-up, or macro, photography. Examining very small things closely—often mundane things in my home, like the tips of my dinner fork—revealed a fascinating tapestry of light, shape, line, texture, and color. All the elements of an expressive artwork in under a few inches! I realized that I could create no matter where or when I found myself. This work has freed me to explore without preconception, which is where a lot of compelling images hide.
My Unearthed Landscapes series grew out of my overall approach to photography.
Unearthed Landscapes settle somewhere between the real and the imagined—not of the earth, but shaped by the same forces as natural terrain. They are unearthed from deterioration and decay on any surface subjected to the elements. These miniature scenes conjure vast, striking landscapes, divorced from any sense of their original small scale. Organic layers of texture, shape and color transform into striated mountains and foggy mornings and coastal cliffs beating back the sea. These images symbolize the resilience of beauty, ceaselessly emerging from unlikely, seemingly ugly places. The series contemplates the duality of destruction and creativity, what is worthless or worthwhile.
None of these photographs were produced using filters, textures, apps or other similar techniques--they are all traditional macro photographs in that sense.