2014-2017

I visited France for the first time the summer of 2014. Much of it in the in the Luberon Valley in the far south with a few days in Paris. And like the typical photographer-tourist I took many pictures during my two week stay. This work is the result of a personal process to assemble images that render an entire experience. An experience comprised of sights, sounds, colors, textures, events, moods, people, landscape, etc. Each photomontage in this series is composed of photographs taken in one particular local. Balance, harmony, and beauty are end goals. And uncertainty that often accompanies dream imagery.

In the book The Photographer’s Eye John Szarkowski discusses the development of photography as an art and writes “It was the photographer’s problem to see not simply reality before him but the still invisible picture, and to make his choices in terms of the latter.” There is something akin to magic in creating an image out of invisible reality. Photography can do this and do it with apparent effortlessness. Yet to do it successfully is a great labor and a great gamble. The photographer must make some sense and order out of the image harvest. My desire is to communicate the mystery in the visible and invisible reality I encountered. Photography has bequeathed this potential and a willing soul is necessary to receive it.

Szarkowski concludes his thoughts about the growth of photography with: “An artist is a man who seeks new structures in which to order and simplify his sense of the reality of life. For the artist photographer, much of his sense of reality (where his picture starts) and much of his sense of craft or structure (where his picture is completed) are anonymous and untraceable gifts from photography itself.”

May these images communicate a reality that is mysterious and wonderful, that is intentional and with purpose.