As an artist, I find it difficult to explain my work. By chance I happened upon the following two quotes of what an artist’s work means to two artists and I immediately understood that my description could be derived from their descriptions.

“Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful”. Vincent Van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother Theo (when Theo was 15 and Vincent 19. Vincent was in London). Post Impressions, Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times, September 19/20 2009.

“I realized I didn’t want to compose pictures, I wanted to find them. I felt that my vision was
choosing things out there in the world and presenting them. To me the investigation of perception was of the greatest interest. There was so much to see, and it all looked fantastic to me.” “Mr. Kelly’s use of found elements went beyond just letting his eyes wander. It led him to compose purely abstract paintings composed of randomly arranged and joined colored panels, a radical move even for him.” Ellsworth Kelly, Who Shaped Geometries on a Bold Scale, Dies. New York Times, Monday. December 28, 2015.

I too need to find “things beautiful” and I too need to express my artistic vision, which is to present elements I find so that they become something other than what they first appear to be, in which randomness becomes order; color becomes form; movement becomes stationary; and reflections vanish.

Photography for me is a way of seeing and transformation. I work in the field and compose my images in the lens of my Minolta 350 SLR, usually using only a zoom lens (60-210 mm). I record these images with Kodak 200 film. Every image in my collection is the full negative without cropping or editorial manipulation.

An odd thing is that, for me to be able to find the images that I am looking for, I have discovered that my mind and eye must be clear and uncluttered by the everyday; I cannot just go out and find that form anywhere. That is why most of my work is done away from my familiar surroundings.

For me, photography is not about technology or the places I have visited; it is a way of seeing; of making connections between the concrete and the spiritual and between lines, colors, and feelings. Finally, it is a way for me to encourage others to look for and find what they might never have noticed had they not seen my photographs.