Ensconced nowadays in rural Pennsylvania, with the Amish and Mennonites for neighbors; it was here that photography found me again.

Each day, I am learning to use the language of symbol & form, light & darkness. I am particularly intrigued when a director/photographer/artist takes simple, everyday things and arranges them in a composition, or mise-en-scène, such that they suddenly attain a universal or higher meaning. August Sander is one who accomplished this. That is my goal. I value originality, creativity and imbued emotion. Like Michael Schorr’s journeyman Schultze, I seek to find the wellspring of creativity. And like a character in a Kaurismäki film, I do so with a wry sense of humor, utter bemusement and humanity. It’s such a body electric experience when it all comes together.

My background is years of self-study, a stint at art school early on, a foundation in philosophy, film study and art history. During a long long hiatus since my studies, I was inspired by the film arts more than anything else, returning to photography only recently.

These are some of the cultural and intellectual touchstones that color my stuff. They include an Eastern European ethnicity, upbringing in Christianity, familiarity with Far Eastern art, a penchant for Gallic reasoning, a foot in more than language and social class, folklorism, erudition, liberal thought, geographic roots in English and French North America, and both an urban and rural lifestyle though a preference for the latter. I shoot squirrels and groundhogs, have hauled horse feed and firewood, driven a Mercedes and a pickup, (the pickup’s more fun), made fine wine, fired up a wood stove, and hiked the Otago. I’ve edited fine art books and journal articles, been captivated by the artistry of Kubrick, Émond, Arcand, Jarmusch, Sayles, Kieslowski and Wajda, and been entranced by the lingering filmic images of Bela Tarr and Tarkovsky.

I don't dwell on equipment used, preferring to concentrate on picture-making. All my work is done in-camera. I use only Lightroom™, and do only that manipulation that would normally have been done in a darkroom, such as cropping, adjustment of light & shadow, color saturation and contrast.

The work on this site is from 2012 onwards.