For many years my photography was travel-based, focusing on ghost towns and other places in glorious decline. Decay and rust attracted me because of their fabulous color gradients often found in very spectacular light, mainly out west in the Great American desert.
Over time, I also became interested in spontaneously occurring subjects of funky material that might be broadly considered to pass for abstract modern art. Outside travel for me then intermittently morphed into a visit to an outdoor museum. The intensive targeted micro forage of a limited area became my modus operandi. This technique was happily borrowed from early crime scene photography techniques.
Forensic Foraging became a flexible alternative to today’s techno-centric digital craft. A modern shooter can still produce solid work just by relentlessly walking around searching for mundane, unnoticed subjects and then lifting them up to be eye candy.
I am attracted to old, wrecked buildings and their contents. There is often a story to be found but more importantly there is usually funk to be had. Funk is that off the wall quality that exudes the off beat. Dying structures often embody funk even in their chaos.
Basic techniques like creative framing, heavy color saturation, and the bold usage of alternative wide angle lenses helps to produce pleasing results. Vigorous post processing and heavy computer manipulation are thereby mercifully avoided. Straight out of the camera then easily translates into real photography.
Hidden away down a tight alleyway I found this fire escape with repeating lines and geometric forms, another of my favorite visual devices. I almost went monochrome but the eerie blue light reflected off the snug walls was a deciding factor.
Much later, I venerated and closely studied the great color pioneers who transformed photography into a modern day sensation. Ernst Haas, Fred Herzog, Helen Levitt, Stephen Shore, and Bill Eggleston to name a few. Even in Vietnam, Larry Burrows employed early color to bring the horrors of war to the pages of LIFE magazine.
I often shoot the backside or oblique portraits, as this elderly man in New York’s Chinatown. Sometimes eschewing the obvious frontal view makes the image stronger.
Choosing color over monochrome is a constant internal tug of war for me. I started as a combat photojournalist in Vietnam where Tri-X film was the gold standard for the Pulitzer Prize winning shooters who first mentored me.
I have little real concern about whether viewers categorize my work as art. (I am not an artist but rather an old school shooter). Therefore, I am free to make unfettered choices in terms of mood, impact on the seer, and concerns about preserving honest presentation. My photojournalist’s beginnings probably drive some of my choices.
But sometimes when I choose color, I can feel the hand of Saul Leiter firmly on my shoulder. If I am shooting a restaurant image, I am thinking Stephen Shore on the road in a obscure Racine, Wisconsin diner. I often might get the choice wrong but more importantly, I get the image.
Some shooters crave irony in their work. The feet above represent visual funk at dinner in an eatery. There is a small untold story under that table cloth. The tattoo is but a cool bonus.
I recently wanted to break out of my usual routine and shot these tulips.The tulips are a minimalist shot with strong elements of saturated color, one of the backbones of my broader work.
Due to my eighty-two years, my current work is mostly in North Carolina within 250 miles of home. I do shoot more still life and spontaneous street portraits. However, my subjects are still quite eclectic.
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