I'm an artist who works in various media, currently posting two ongoing series of photo abstractions here on Tumblr. My focus in the L-series is to create line, mass, and motion by shooting multiple fixed light sources in dark or low light conditions. The images track and capture the motion of my body as I move through space in various ways to "draw" with the light. It can be a surprisingly physical process. The A-series images are captured from a moving vehicle. With this work, I attempt to break down and transform various elements of the urban and suburban built environment into charged emotional experiences. I use existing light sources around and within the structures and spaces. This results in some of the images feeling brash or violent, others serene, many alienating or lonely. Along with a fascination for exploring places at night, I love the feeling that I get when I view the best night scenes of Edward Hopper or one of James Whistler's Nocturnes. I've utilized experimental shooting and darkroom techniques in the past, and am currently misusing low-res digital cameras in order to distort light. With the exception of some of the images from the L-series (you'll know which ones by looking), I’m trying to create mini series or “narratives” 12 at a time within each larger ongoing series. Each series could continue forever and be shown in a straight line on any wall long enough to accommodate this. But I additionally want to create smaller groups of 12 images that relate in a coherent way with one another—and obviously, each needs to work on its own. Due the constraints of a Tumblr template I otherwise like for its minimal and unobtrusive design, I’m posting each completed mini grouping of 12 images in reverse order so that they show in the intended order (for example: A-36 posted last to A-25 posted first, allows images to read left to right, top to bottom as A-25 through A-36). Everything gets a bit out-of-whack as I post new images, until I finish a group of 12 and take a few days off, leaving each page a discreet group of 12 images from each alternating series. Working on each series, I may take dozens of photos for one shot. Due to the different processes I use to create each series—the L-series being in a more controlled environment versus the A-series from a moving vehicle—the A-series generally presents me with more problems and requires scouting sites, multiple passes at different rates of speed on different nights at different times and so on, until I obtain the effect I desire. Neither series is digitally altered in any way with the exception of straightening (never by more than 1°) or cropping (never by more than 1/4", keeping original image proportions). In these rare occasions a parenthetical date is added to the title—which, incidentally, is never any more than the series name, number, and date—that shows the date of this edit. The titles serve only to aid me in cataloging my work and to orient the viewer as to the dates and sequence within the larger series. I want the work to be defined by each viewer by their own visceral or intellectual response to it, without any sort of interpretative push by me by way of applying titles. I'm happy when people engage my work and always grateful when they share their respective experiences and interpretations with me. My view of and intentions for each photo are sometimes quite different from the feedback I get. I’m fine with this. It either means that I need to develop as an artist and work harder to communicate more clearly through my work, or that each of us experience the world in such different ways that a single unified meaning or experience for a work of art is impossible to fix. Either of these are fascinating and powerful motivating factors for me to continue in my visual practice.
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