Artist Statement

Gardens of Light

Some people collect things: autographs, baseball, cards, cars, art.

I collect light. Light reveals the remarkable diversity of shapes, textures, and forms that we see every day. That is why I can go back to the same place, year after year, and make new photographs of the same objects. If you take away the object you can still make a photograph, if you take away the light, there is no photograph.

I am captivated by the magnificent variety of light. I want to reach out and grasp it, keep it, take it home. When I photograph, I attempt to collect these ephemeral fragments of light on film. It could be the harsh light of a clear fall day, or the soft light of a winter's eve. Just as likely, the twinkling lights of a distant city on a cool windy evening or the shimmering waves of light on a seemingly barren desert.

Granted, a photograph can never equal these elegant moments of light. But somehow, when I return from a day of photographing and go to the darkroom to process the film, I am somehow transported back to that primeval moment when the first rays of light were cast upon all existence.

Why photograph? To experience the delight, the mystery, the awe, the exhilaration, of discovering and collecting these magnificent fragments of light. Fragments that seem as if they were truly,
Gifts From The Garden – the garden of light.