EXTERNAL EXPOSURES

​I see the world through a camera lens and use the darkroom as a therapy session. Whether behind my enlarger in the darkroom or my computer screen in my studio, using mediums such as traditional 35mm film or new-age digital media, all becomes quiet and personal, and life becomes focused. I make my prints to reflect my mood, bold with contrast, washed out, timid, alive with color, or lost in thought through black and white. 

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 I select subjects supplied both by the pristine natural environment and those devastated by humanity, from grandeur landscapes to the overlooked details of micro/macro. My photographs are a snapshot of my reality in time, placing what I see and feel in a harmonious balance of aesthetics for the viewer to experience, such as my Texas Night Sky works. Each piece captures the trauma and pain caused by humanity in the environment or a remembrance of the beauty before it escapes us, like photography by Ansel Adams or a reflection of my physical and mental torment like Frida Kahlo's self-portraits. On one side is the overlooked story of a subject such as the night stars, and on the other side of the balance, a photograph of my vision, Star Zoom. A photo saturated in purples and reds like a fresh bruise as streaks of color zoom at a center point like a trigger on a raw nerve, my pain, my truth.  ​

 

Sometimes my truth is dark and full of horror while still beautiful, like works by photographer Joel Peter Witkin. Other times my reality is brightly trimmed with joy and overwhelming beauty that makes it seem unnatural, like in my assemblage micro works of the Natural Death of Nature. They capture the beauty in simple things found in nature, even after life has been extinguished. A dead tree leaf cradles the dormant flower seeds as a dead butterfly takes its eternal rest upon its edge. The leaf swallows two pink flowers in jealousy. Like butterflies, the pink flowers are beautiful even in death, while the fallen leaf turns a brittle brown.