Storm Bear
Artist Statement
My work emerges from a life lived on the edges โ of time, of place, of identity. As an older queer man, I see the world through a lens honed by resilience, tenderness, and deep observation. Each image I make โ whether a quiet still life, a textured landscape, a fleeting moment in the street, or an experimental composition โ stems from a desire to preserve what is vanishing, overlooked, or dismissed.
I photograph not to decorate but to witness. I am not interested in prints that match couches or mimic trends. My images are not mass-produced decor โ they are fragments of love, thoughtfulness, and history. They are visual testaments to forgotten textures, fractured light, worn pathways, accidental beauty, and the oddities of our shared spaces.
Whether itโs a blue plastic chair casting a long shadow in an alley, a craggy desert formation under an apocalyptic sky, a hungry squirrel stealing processed food on sacred land, or a weathered man playing guitar beneath a pink sky โ each image is a moment of quiet resistance against disposability.
I believe in images that breathe. That ache. That asks something of the viewer.
My photography is a catalog of what we are losing: ecological subtlety, eccentric street characters, humble materials, and unscripted moments. And in that loss, I hope to create presence โ each photo a small, luxurious act of remembering.
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Most people when having their photo taken, fall into a simple pose and stay there. This photo of a friend of mine, wearing something festive, had a bit of a pose, but I wanted him to be more dramatic.
A little coaching and support can get a good photo to be transformed into something spectacular.
Here is another one. The tourist photo...
But when you do something interesting, it adds more to the story.
Not every photo of a person has to be from the front...
Below are some more portraits to give some examples of how to steer clear of taking boring photos of people.
Back in the day, the goal of any photographer was to get as much of the image created through the lens as they can, and the rest to be done in the darkroom. It was easier to get the right photo on film than it was to craft it in a dark room. Ansel Adams was a MASTER of the darkroom. I'm totally jealous of his skills with images.
Now we have a plethora of choices, both in camera for both film and digital cameras.
Let's start with optical filters, usually made of glass that is tinted or creates an effect.
Cokin and Tiffen are the most popular brands of optical filters.
If you are shooting on something other a smartphone, you should at least have one filter on your lens just to protect the lens from scratches and impacts. A plain glass filter or a polarizer should be standard kit for your system.
But my fav filter is "Galaxy Diffuser" by Cokin. It was the first I bought back in the 80s because is was just sooooo gay!
It creates radiant rainbows expanding out from a light source. Here is another example from that filter...
It can create some amazing effects, especially with light sources that are moving. Brilliant.
There are literally thousands of optical filters available. You might want another job.
But let's talk about digital filters. They are available from almost all social media and art apps. You can modify, tints, tones, saturation - everything. Back in the day, we had to craft negatives in developer chemicals and then we were faced with the printing the photo - burning and dodging were a thing. But software can do that for you and software can also do some things we really didn't think about 50 years ago.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
โ Live Streamingโ Interactive Chatโ Private Showsโ HD Qualityโ Free Actions
Free to watch โข No registration required โข HD streaming
Street photographyย isย photographyย conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents withinย public places. It usually has the aim of capturing images at a decisive or poignant moment by careful framing and timing. Street photography overlaps widely withย candid photography, although the latter can also be used in other settings, such asย portrait photographyย andย event photography.
I love street photography because you can capture so much raw emotion from a a simple click of the camera. This image, I feel, is the height of this genre...
The image is so moving and impactful, it has it's own Wikipedia entry.
I ain't that good. But here are some street art pics that show a wide variety in the art form.
A bowling alley in Washington State.
Kinda a street art pic, but on an airplane. A very nervous passenger getting ready to land at SFO.
Then there is this fucking guy! LOL
Only in Las Cruces.
Street musicians are a common subject for street photography.
Little alleys and walkways always offer great photographic experiences.
A little scene from Old Misillia, New Mexico.
One word of caution, people often do not like to be photographed and you should always expect pushback. Even though it is your right to take any photo you want in a public place, please practice caution. Artists have been severely hurt for taking photos, even killed.
I advocate using equipment that allows you to produce your art and protect yourself. People are somewhat used to seeing people running around taking photos of all sorts of things with a smartphone and for the most part, they ignore them. Bring out a professional camera and you are in a different situation. People know you are not a casual photographer. And for street photography, you want to blend in, you want to look like just another bloke in the crowd. You do not want to stand out.
Always turn the sound OFF of your smartphone so it doesn't make a click when you take a photo. And please, FOR HE LOVE OF GOD, don't use a old school Hasselblad. When those things take a photo, you can hear it two blocks away!
What is a still life? Essentially it is a photo (or other piece of visual art) that features a simple collection of objects, presented in an artistic way. Here is the Wikipedia entry on it.
Here is a simple example of that featuring some knick knacks I picked up in Mexico.
Below is a still life where I added a little sumthin-sumthin to make a more interesting photo...
And sometimes it can just be trash you find in a parking lot.
Or it could just be bits from your afternoon snack.
Everyone has objects just lounging around the house, put them to work so you can exercise your creative freedom!!
โDeclaration/Declaraciรณn: Objects Of An Unfinished Countryโ is a photographic still-life project created in response to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the continuing question of what that document means in the Borderlands. Rather than treating the Declaration as a settled historical artifact, the work approaches it as an active, unresolved promise: a statement of idealism that has always existed alongside conflict, exclusion, expansion, hope, and contradiction. Through symbolic objects arranged with the clarity of product photography, the project examines the American experiment with democracy as something still being measured, claimed, divided, repaired, and argued over.
The three images use constructed objects as small monuments to large national tensions. A white pennant planted in a brick of soil suggests territory, possession, and the fragile authority of claims. A plumb bob suspended between markers labeled โUSโ and โMXโ turns the border into both a measurement and a wound, invoking the long history of land, governance, and identity in a region shaped by Spain, Mexico, the United States, and Indigenous presence. A heavy stone pressing down on layered colored paper beside the word โequalโ addresses the pressure placed on the Declarationโs most famous promise, asking whether equality has been upheld, deferred, burdened, or only partially imagined.
Rooted in New Mexico and the Texas Borderland, this project offers a non-traditional view of the founding of the United States from a region whose American experience did not begin on the East Coast and did not follow the familiar national myth. Here, the ideals of the Declaration arrived through conquest, treaty, territorial redefinition, cultural survival, and contested belonging.ย
โDeclaration/Declaraciรณn: Objects Of An Unfinished Countryโ uses minimal objects, vivid color, and borderland symbolism to ask how the original promises of the United States have played out over time, and how those promises continue to evolve in a place where nationhood has always been layered, bilingual, disputed, and unfinished.
---------------------------------
THE PROPERTY LINE
A brass plumb bob descends into the sand like an instrument of certainty, dividing two small ancestral adobe homes, carved โU.S.โ and โMX.โ The image reduces the border to its most elemental gesture: a line imagined, measured, enforced, and inherited. Within the Declaration project, the work reflects on the Mesilla Valley and the political transformations that reshaped it across centuries, from Indigenous homeland to Spanish and Mexican territory, disputed borderland, and U.S. possession. The bright blue field and toy-like scale create a deceptive simplicity, while the suspended weight suggests the gravity of surveying, treaty-making, and national claim. What appears to be a precise boundary is also a fragile construction - one that separates people, histories, languages, and memory across a landscape that long preceded the line.
Diorama was handmade by the artist.
Part of the "Declaraciรณn: Objects Of An Unfinished Country" series.
Nikon Z8, NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S
---------------------------------
TERRITORY
A square of Mesilla Valley earth is staged as a small, contested territory: red soil, scattered stones, and a white flag of surrender rising from a fragile stem. The image speaks to a landscape that has been named and renamed across centuriesโIndigenous homeland, Spanish frontier, Mexican territory, disputed borderland, and finally part of the United States after the political reshaping of the Southwest. Here, surrender is not shown as a single event, but as a recurring condition imposed by maps, treaties, surveys, armies, and ownership. The white flag does not resolve the conflict; it marks what is lost when land is claimed by those with the power to declare it theirs. In this miniature scene, the Mesilla Valley becomes both a place and a witness: beautiful, vulnerable, and still carrying the weight of every border drawn across it.
Diorama was handmade by the artist.
Part of the "Declaraciรณn: Objects Of An Unfinished Country" series.
Nikon Z8, NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S
---------------------------------
WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS
A heavy stone rests on a layered stack of pastel paper, its weight pressing against the word โEQUALโ placed quietly at the base. The image turns the Declaration Of Independenceโs most famous promise into a physical burden: beautiful in language, fragile in practice, and unevenly carried across generations. In the Mesilla Valley and the wider borderlands, ideals of equality have moved through Indigenous, Spanish, Mexican, and American histories, often arriving as declarations before becoming lived realities. The stone suggests the force of law, memory, and resistance; the paper suggests the documents, treaties, amendments, records, and claims through which rights are granted, denied, revised, and contested. What appears delicate is also persistent. Beneath the weight of history, the promise of equality remains visible, unfinished, and still demanding to be upheld.
Diorama was handmade by the artist.
Part of the "Declaraciรณn: Objects Of An Unfinished Country" series.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
โ Live Streamingโ Interactive Chatโ Private Showsโ HD Qualityโ Free Actions
Free to watch โข No registration required โข HD streaming
Back in the day, the goal of any photographer was to get as much of the image created through the lens as they can, and the rest to be done in the darkroom. It was easier to get the right photo on film than it was to craft it in a dark room. Ansel Adams was a MASTER of the darkroom. I'm totally jealous of his skills with images.
Now we have a plethora of choices, both in camera for both film and digital cameras.
Let's start with optical filters, usually made of glass that is tinted or creates an effect.
Cokin and Tiffen are the most popular brands of optical filters.
If you are shooting on something other a smartphone, you should at least have one filter on your lens just to protect the lens from scratches and impacts. A plain glass filter or a polarizer should be standard kit for your system.
But my fav filter is "Galaxy Diffuser" by Cokin. It was the first I bought back in the 80s because is was just sooooo gay!
It creates radiant rainbows expanding out from a light source. Here is another example from that filter...
It can create some amazing effects, especially with light sources that are moving. Brilliant.
There are literally thousands of optical filters available. You might want another job.
But let's talk about digital filters. They are available from almost all social media and art apps. You can modify, tints, tones, saturation - everything. Back in the day, we had to craft negatives in developer chemicals and then we were faced with the printing the photo - burning and dodging were a thing. But software can do that for you and software can also do some things we really didn't think about 50 years ago.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
โ Live Streamingโ Interactive Chatโ Private Showsโ HD Qualityโ Free Actions
Free to watch โข No registration required โข HD streaming
What is a still life? Essentially it is a photo (or other piece of visual art) that features a simple collection of objects, presented in an artistic way. Here is the Wikipedia entry on it.
Here is a simple example of that featuring some knick knacks I picked up in Mexico.
Below is a still life where I added a little sumthin-sumthin to make a more interesting photo...
And sometimes it can just be trash you find in a parking lot.
Or it could just be bits from your afternoon snack.
Everyone has objects just lounging around the house, put them to work so you can exercise your creative freedom!!
