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Here and Now

Early spring cherry blossoms at the Chinese Reconciliation Park, Tacoma, WA.

I have the opportunity to produce a gallery show of my photography this year. Can’t say when or where just yet, but it’s in the works and is definitely going to happen. To that end I’ve been reviewing a lot of my new and previously unproduced work looking for common themes and something I can pull together into a cohesive showing that says something larger about my art.

What I keep coming back to is my basic ethos that I want to be able to make a good picture wherever I am — to remind people that beauty is all around us. Secondarily, but maybe more importantly is the limiting factor that attracts me to photography in the first place. Unlike painting or drawing, photography begins by capturing a single, actual moment in time. Sure that moment is affected by how I use my eyes, my brain, and camera. But a painting or a sketch are more truly the artist’s interpretation of a moment, or can be made up wholly from the artist’s imagination. What I choose to make is art that could not exist without my collaboration with a force that’s outside of my control.

In fact, I’m fascinated by time and humankind’s relative understanding of it and need to control and measure it. The most common belief is that time is an endless one-way stream. Once a moment is gone, it will never be repeated exactly in the same way again. I might choose to put myself in a beautiful faraway and exotic place, or a few steps from my front door — that’s just geography. But wherever I am, when I choose to take a picture I step into the flowing stream and pick my moment as it flows swiftly by. When I’ve done my job as an artist, I hope to have captured that moment and found a way to say something universal that exists completely outside of time.

Anyway, that’s a lot to think about right now. All the above messy stuff that goes on inside my head, as well as my evolving views on photography, art, time, and life will be the subject of my next show. I look forward to making an announcement soon, and hope you’ll find a way to join me!