WATER SERIES

Convinced that photography's power comes from it's unparalleled ability to describe what's visible in front of the camera, I try to provide subjects or combinations of light and substance which test that power. My photographs are very "straight”, in other words the camera simply records what was in front of it -- one standing at the lens would see what the camera “saw”. There is no manipulation after the initial single exposure of the negative either in the darkroom or with computers, etc.

 WATER

The Water Series began about ten years ago. Working in the studio with a 4x5 camera, my initial concern was to see if I could combine water with the human figure in naturally convincing tableaux. To my surprise the variations made possible by mixing two such mythic symbols led from picture to picture until now the Water Series consists of over one-hundred images.

Optically dynamic, water is transparent, reflective and refractive. It "mirrors" and "lenses". In a sense we don't actually "see" water. We see what water does to what is in it, under it or reflected by it. Liquid water moves and its motion relative to the viewer and the light dictates what it does visually. Along the way I learned that the geometry, or shape, of the surface of the water was the most critical aspect visually.This led to building sets and devices which allow other-worldly visual environments with wave forms, splashes and fields of lensing bubbles.