About Me

I always liked drawing and painting and making things, but it wasn’t until my youngest son started school that I decided to learn about photography. I took some courses at the local college (North Country Community College) with Ken Wiley, an art professor there. Not only did he teach me the basics, but he encouraged me to keep on trying new techniques. I’m still exploring alternative methods and ideas.

I’ve abandoned film and darkroom work, and have just two simple cameras. I manipulate colors and shapes with my computer, and often do some embellishing of the printed works by hand. Even if I have an idea of what the finished product will look like, I keep my mind open to unexpected possibilities. Whatever I photograph, my aim is to create something new in the world. I’m not so much interested in recording exactly what I see or what is there as I am in making a new and perhaps mysterious image. 

My photographs can be reproduced just as they are, but they take on individual appearances when I print them on different papers or surfaces. Sometimes I brush coatings onto plain paper in order to create unusual effects. Although these photographs closely resemble the original shot, they are one of a kind.

In December of 1997 I joined with four other artists to found the Adirondack Artists Guild, which is still thriving with fourteen members, and is about to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary. The gallery is part of a busy artistic community in Saranac Lake, NY, a village in the Adirondack Mountains.

Gallery 46, in Lake Placid, NY, has shown my work since its inception in 2015, and I always have photographs on display at Pendragon Theatre in Saranac Lake.

Over the years I’ve taken part in many group and solo shows, and have received several awards. Most recently I won first prize in a show at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts and as a result was given a large show there in the winter of 2022 with Paul Pederson, the winner of another juried show at the LPCA. My pictures from the show are here in a portfolio on this site. For the time being, at least, my work together with Paul’s can be seen on the LPCA announcement here.

Venues where I have exhibited include:

 

About My Process

People sometimes ask about how I create my images. Among the processes and techniques used are those illustrated below. My final processing is done using GIMP, a free, open source editing program

Mylar

One of the techniques I use to manipulate images even before I capture them is to use Mylar to reflect and distort my subject. Loosely attaching mylar to a large sheet of cardboard provides a wavering mirror image which is an interesting starting point that reflects reality in unique ways. For example, here are 3 images reflecting sky and trees taken in roughly the same spot. You can see the mountains, clouds and trees, but they are clearly not what the eye would see through a camera lens. Although I am never sure what I will capture, once I download these I can start working and experimenting with other techniques to see where it takes me.

             

Stretching and Squeezing

“Trees in Autumn” (Below) was originally a horizontal shot. I cropped it slightly, then stretched it vertically to get it how I liked it.

“Trees in Autumn” (Original)
“Trees in Autumn” (Original)
“Trees in Autumn” (Transformed)
“Trees in Autumn” (Transformed)

     

Color Manipulation

“At Heaven Hill” (Below) is a photograph of trees in snow. By manipulating the color and stretching it horizontally, I made it something completely different.

“At Heaven Hill” (Original)
“At Heaven Hill” (Original)
“At Heaven Hill” (Transformed)
“At Heaven Hill” (Transformed)

Value Inversion

I photographed “Night Tree” (Below) in broad daylight. I flipped the original left to right, compressed it into a square by reducing the vertical height without changing the width, and finally inverted the color values.

Basis of Night Tree
Basis of Night Tree
Night Tree
Night Tree

Combining Techniques

I will play with all the above techniques. Sometimes an image does not end up in a place that satisfies me. Usually, though, I end up discovering something I really like. Below is an image of rose hips I took using Mylar. I then experimented with orientation and colors. The final image, “In a Dream”, was in a recent show.

Rose Hips
Rose Hips    
In a Dream
In a Dream