#studio_mbk

I was fascinated by the intersection of object phenomena -- clouds, plants, body of water -- with the subjective and illusory phenomenal world depicted in a painting of the reflections of clouds and plants on the surface of a body of water. While plants, sky and water can be grasped as things by all five senses, reflections on the surface of the water are experienced by only one sense, though they can invoke memories of other sensations. This is not unlike a photograph. In fact, any pictorial representation has this quality.

I see Impressionism as an attempt to explore the boundaries between object and personality. What we have in this painting is a reflective world itself reflected by a personality, in this case, that of Monet.

Monet's choice of subject matter, rendered with impressionistic techniques and sensibilities, created a sublime hall of mirrors for me. The whole universe poured in.

How was it that you first became interested in photography? Who or what were your most prevalent mentors or influences along the way?

I've had a camera of one kind or another from the time I was old enough to take care of them. There were Instamatics with flashcubes and cheap Polaroid cameras in the beginning. I got my first "serious" camera, a Minolta 35mm that I still have, when I was in high school. I remember going for walks at sunset in the winter and trying to capture the magic I saw.

My father was probably an influence. He's had some kind of camera for as long as I can remember. He owned a Polaroid SX-70 when it first came out. Like many dads, he took lots of pictures of his family and kept albums.

I've had artistic intent from the beginning, but it was not until recently that I have pursued that intent full throttle, and I give both life circumstances and the arrival of the digital age credit for that.

When digital cameras arrived, I bought a series of them to use in my profession, architecture. And because of architecture, I also had Photoshop, the digital darkroom. I've never spent time in an analog darkroom. I sent film out to be developed and printed. With the arrival of the digital age, I was in full control of the image, from exposure to printing.

Why did you choose photography versus another means of expression?

I'm a miserable failure when it comes to freehand drawing or painting. Of course I took a nude drawing class when I was in college and was encouraged to keep a sketch book, but I was much better at mechanical drafting and rendering artistic ideas in precise ways with precise tools.

At the same time, I have a poetic and emotive personality. With a camera I can bring the two together in a way that is perfect for me. It provides an accurate rendering of an object or scene, which I choose for its emotive impact, and which I then process with computer tools in ways that intensify that impact.

My wife likes to say that I paint with the camera.

Tell us about the work that is presented here.

When I got serious about photography as an art form, I began going for daily, meditative photo walks. My walks are along streets and trails in Beacon NY for the most part, but I maintain the practice when traveling. I've been doing this for three or four years now. I walk at the same time every day and I photograph whatever attracts me. When I return home, I edit the images I have captured as I feel compelled to. There is often a significant difference between the image as it comes off the memory card and the final product. People like to ask, "did you get anything good today?" when they see me on the street. I tell them "probably, but I never know until I get home and get them on the computer." It all depends on what I can draw out of them when I process them.

My work is personal and meditative. It drives at themes and questions that are on the mind of a sixty year old man -- life, death, sex, the meaning of all this, the meaning of me.

The work I have presented here is a sub-set of this larger and more encompassing effort. To me, this particular set addresses nature's fecundity (I love that word) and death.

Do you keep a journal or a sketchbook? If so, what form does it take?

I keep a written journal. Part of my meditative routine is to stop at a local cafe and write for an hour or so after my photo walk. I write using a simple text editor on my iPad. I used to write with a fountain pen in Moleskin notebooks or the like, but in the digital age I can't bear to have my written material in such an un-malleable form.

My writing starts as stream of consciousness and proceeds to whatever riffing I want to do off of that. Days, weeks, even months later I will read what I have written and some of it will be worthy of refining into a more considered piece. I've joined a local writing group to help me develop that end of my practice.

I am currently exploring the combination of images and words. My interest is in combining them so that they mutually reinforce each another without trying to describe or illustrate one another. The words and the pictures each stand on their own, on separate pages. Together they deliver a more dimensional story.

The words have a way of grounding the photographic work. They also introduce more directly certain kinds of subject material, such as people. I almost never photograph people. I am too shy to ask them. But I can sit in a cafe and observe what is going on around me and write about them without being noticed.

What's the strangest or most interesting job you've ever had?

When I was in college I worked a couple of summers on the assembly line at the Ford Motor Plant in Mahwah NJ. I had some important experiences there. One in particular stands out.

It was my last day of work before returning to school. I worked the night shift. During "lunch," one of the guys working near me on the line insisted on buying me a farewell beer. We ran out of the plant, hopped in his car and raced to a dive bar on the other side of the highway. He bought me a couple of beers and I watched him down five or six mugs himself. He sat there with tears streaming down his cheeks, telling me not to be like him; to get my education and do something better with my life; to be in control of my life.

I think he had gotten a girl pregnant, married her and the next thing he knew he was on the assembly line of an automobile plant because that was the best way to support his family.

I had a number of human experiences like that while working in the plant.

I don't know what relation that has to my photography except that the bar and we would have been perfect subject material for Robert Frank's The Americans, just a few years too late.

What album/book/movie is the most meaningful to you and why?

I think I will go with Moby Dick on this one. It is probably the most relevant to the photographic work I am doing.

I tried for years to read it and never got past the first one hundred pages. And then I read a book called All Things Shining, subtitled Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age. It singled out Moby Dick as the pinnacle of Western literature as far as "meaning in a secular age" was concerned. The authors illustrated the point with passages from the book that were so beautiful. I was inspired to pick it up again and read until I encountered each of the passages it singled out. The next thing I knew I had finished it.

One passage especially stood out to me. Ishmael and his boat mates become stranded in the middle of a pod of whales during a hunt. The pod is under attack from the crew of the Pequod and it is a churning mass of chaotic anger on the peripheries, but at the center it is blissfully calm. Ishmael looks down and sees in the depths of the waters all the birthing mothers and calves swimming serenely beneath him. He sees, in effect, the birthing center of the universe. Melville has him reflect on his experience this way:

But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still forever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.

Oh my...

In conclusion, what does being a photographer mean to your life?

It is the journey I have chosen to finish my life with. You reach a certain age and begin to wonder what you have done with your life and what it all means. You begin to acknowledge that there is a limited amount of time on the planet and you think that for once in your life you want to do exactly what you desire to do, and for me that is photography and writing.

About three years ago I stopped being an Architect and started being a Photographer and Writer. I have applied myself diligently and happily ever since. I have given myself the space to pursue deep questions with my images and writing on a daily basis. It's not the most intelligent financial decision I ever made, but it's a completely satisfying one.

When I made this decision I started a blog called My Mount Everest is Calling, so titled because it seemed a good metaphor for what I was undertaking. At the top of My Mount Everest is a published photography book and significant acknowledgement of my work.