FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHS

(Art Collectors)

I am an award winning fine art photographer with over 35 years of experience in the art of photography.   My art is concentrated on people with an emphasis on personal projects, the performing arts, portraiture and the genre of the street.

Since shortly after arriving in Portland from New York City in 1993, my photographs have been exhibited in numerous juried group and individual exhibitions in galleries and museums in the Northwest.  My work is represented in several institutional collections, such as the City of Portland, The Visual Chronicle of Portland, Oregon State University and OHSU Hospital, and in the collections of several individuals.   I am the recipient of the Jim and Stella Coakley Award.

To me it is important that anyone who owns, or considers owning, one of my prints understands the medium and process, the extent of this artist’s involvement in the creation of the image, and in some cases, the philosophy, thought, issues or feelings motivating or underlying the creation of the images and portfolios.

Obviously, my passion is for the black and white photography medium.   I feel that gray must be added to the rubric, so I like to refer to it as black and white and gray.  The grayscale is integral to the image’s representation and to the feeling, intent or emotion that is to be conveyed to the viewer.

Very rarely do I work in a color medium.   While I love color and colorful things, I feel that often the color imposes too much on the image so that the image is more about the color than the content and intent.   The colors can independently create an emotional response in the viewer.   This is not necessarily a negative if that component is integral to the artistic message and supports what the artist is trying to say.  Such is not the case for me as my intent is to bring out more of the depth of the subject and help the viewer see, feel and explore more of the subject than that which appears on the surface.

I feel that black, white and gray photographic materials support my intent to bring out more depth in the subject and more readily help the viewer see, feel and explore it.   To accomplish such goals with my work, I use Kodak Tri-X film almost exclusively.   It is a panchromatic film that can capture colors in different shades of black, white and gray.   Depending on the situation, I may use 35mm (135), 6cm (120, medium format) or 4x5 (large format) film.

In my darkroom, I develop the film and make the prints by hand without assistance.   Prints that are intended as works of art are printed on high quality fiber based paper that is coated with a gelatin silver emulsion.   I usually use Ilford photographic papers.   Most of my work, including portraits, are made on such paper.  The combination of this kind of paper and the archival paper processing methods that I use ensure that my prints will last virtually unchanged well into the next century and beyond if cared for properly like any other work of art.   Although the photographing of the subject and the resulting image may have been conceived and made as a work of art, for commercial uses, head shots, or in the case of extra copies of portraits, I may print my work on resin coated papers which are not archival and can be expected to deteriorate over the medium term (several decades).

All images in the following portfolios are currently available for purchase as archive processed fine art prints:

NEW WORK : MEMOIR

This new body of work called “Memoir” is a portfolio of photographs of me wearing clothes that I’ve accumulated since 1959, specifically the kind worn at the torso or gut level.   They are some of the thirty photographs in a soon to be published book titled “Gut Level: A Memoir”.   In the book, the photographs are accompanied by written memoirs of events, occurrences, relationships, thoughts, emotions and things that happened in my life.   The idea for the book came about because it seemed to me that even the non-famous were writing their memoirs, so why not me too.   I had no reason to write a memoir until the idea came to me to photograph myself wearing these articles of clothing.

Each piece is represented in two distinctly different renderings.   One rendering is clear.   The other is not.   The former represents the ability to see the article in the present.   The latter represents the memory with its ability to see only dimly the article and the events as they were in the past.   Thus, the style of these is designed to appear as if I’m emerging from the past.  The book publishes only the former rendering with the written memoirs.

I photographed myself in the clothes, unassisted, on 4” X 5” black and white sheet film with a Linhof view camera and a 90mm Nikkor superwide lens at very close range.   Each negative is printed full negative, not just full frame.

The style of the photographs that represent the memory was achieved by briefly exposing to light a stack of the sheet film sandwiched between opaque material, loading the flashed film in the film holders and making the camera exposures in the same manner as the photographs that represent the ability to see the article in the present.

The images in this portfolio are grouped by decade: 1950s - 60s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s,

The photographs are for sale individually.   There is no requirement that both renderings of a given “vestment” be purchased together.

Go to MEMOIR Portfolio

THEATRE

Much of my work in theatre has been for publicity photographs and production stills that document the theatre production.   I have been fortunate that I have been given artistic license to create the publicity photographs.

The photographs are 16” x 20” black, white and gray prints conceived, lighted, photographed and printed by me based on my own creative vision of each play.   I perform every aspect of the creative process: the creation and lighting of the photo set, the photographing of the actors on medium format film, the film development and the custom printing of the photographs in my darkroom.   The photographs are printed on fiber based photographic paper, processed for archival permanence and signed by me as the artist.

For those theatre companies interested in my work, I will engage in a collaborative effort to cross promote the publicity of the theatres’ productions and the sale of my art prints to its patrons and donors as percentage donations to the theatre company.

Much of my work in Theatre has been published in printed media.

Go to THEATRE Portfolio

STREET

STREET : GREENWICH VILLAGE HALLOWEEN PARADE

This is a portfolio of images of the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade of October 31, 1997.   The images were made from a vantage point along Avenue of the Americas (a/k/a 6th Avenue).   I employed a camera technique that froze the primary image element while at the same time allowing me to “paint” the image with existing background light.

The portfolio of images was printed cropped on 16” x 20” fiber based paper and selenium toned to produce a barely noticeable purplish tone in the blacks and grays.

Go to STREET: GREENWICH VILLAGE HALLOWEEN PARARDE Portfolio

STREET : ROYAL ROSARIAN

In 2000, I photographed a Royal Rosarian event.   The annual Royal Rosarian Knighting Ceremony occurs in early June during Portland’s Rose Festival.   At its conclusion, there’s a recessional that becomes the processional to the Rose Garden for the plaque laying ceremony of the Rose Queen.   I have attended and photographed it every year since.

One photograph I made from the first year was purchased by the City of Portland for its Visual Chronicle of Portland art collection of artwork on paper.  You may come across it on the wall in one of Portland’s many civic buildings.

The Knighting Ceremony has obvious attractions for me.  It has tradition, pomp and circumstance mixed with a certain understated humor. It has the costumes of the Rosarians, the Queen and her Court and some of the Honorees to be knighted.   I also see it as part of the neediness of a society somehow to have its royalty despite the very idea of it being so odious as to be rejected in the founding document of that society (Art. I, Sec. 9, U.S. Constitution).

The “anti-freak" is a major factor that compels my photographic interests and informs many of my choices of subject matter.   Just as the anti-hero is a compelling figure in cinematic film stories, for me the subtle freakishness of the Rosarian as the apparent anti-freak is a compelling story for the still film of my camera.

Go to STREET: ROYAL ROSARIAN Portfolio

INFRARED SCENICS

The film I used for this portfolio was a departure from my Tri-X standard.   Kodak High Speed Infrared Black and White film is sensitive to both some of the infrared light spectrum, which is invisible to humans, and some of the visible light spectrum.   Use of this film required a new way of seeing on my part. My approach to lighting, exposure and filtration was modified in order to get the look and effect that I was seeking.

My attraction to this film medium was because of my interest in time, its passage and the past.   For me, the emotional response is of dreaminess, other-worldliness and of being transported to another time and place.  The portfolio of images was printed cropped on 16” x 20” fiber based paper from the images recorded on the 35mm infrared film for a show at Omni Gallery in Portland in 1999. The softness of the printed image inherent in the film was enhanced by the subtle graininess created by the enlargement ratio, all to support the desired effect.

I don’t consider it landscape photography.   They are scenes, thus the title “Infrared Scenics”.   They are scenes, not landscapes, because they are about things that are singularly human and include things human even if no human appears.  Any landscape element is secondary or tertiary.

I began work on this portfolio in the early 1990s while still living in New York and concluded it after moving to Portland.   It has been exhibited and one piece, “Villa Versace”, received an award from the Portland Metropolitan Photographers Association.

Go to INFRARED SCENICS Portfolio

FIGURATIVE : ARTES VOYOU'RE

In this portfolio of black, white and gray photographs entitled “Artes Voyou’re”, I place before you the motivations of artists, myself included, in producing and the viewer in going to see figure, i.e., nude, photographs, and challenge you to accept that it is as much or more so done for the titillation of seeing a naked woman as it is for appreciating art or the beauty of the human form.

I photographed my subjects and printed the images so as to impart the feeling of looking through a presumed visually exclusionary barrier into the presumed private space of the subject.   You are not permitted the comfort of simply looking at a two dimensional photograph of a nude or semi-nude woman, and thinking that you’re doing it just for the beauty of the art form.   But, just as surely as you peer into her space and see her (voyou’re), you also can’t deny your appreciation of the sensuous beauty of the art of nature embodied in the lines, forms, and curves (artes).   Whatever motivates you is purely human, after all now, isn’t it?

The portfolio of images was printed cropped on 16" x 20" fiber based paper.

Go to FIGURATIVE: ARTES VOYOU'RE Portfolio

PERFORMANCE