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What was your earliest foray in photography?
My great aunt gave me my first camera when I was eight and I loved it right away. I remember one of the first photos I took of the rock garden outside our house with a big agave plant in the center. The picture was black and white, but when I got it back, I thought the agave looked green, just for a second, just the impression of it. Then it all turns into Ansel Adams after that (laughs). But it was probably the first time I thought about the way silver defines tones, in that I was still able to associate those tones as green.
What's your education in photography?
I took a darkroom class in high school and an Intro to Photography at a community college back in 1992. Both times, I was very interested in symbolic images. I took a picture of a swing set where I pushed the empty swings so they were all going at different speeds, it was sort of moody and dark. The first shot I did for a college assignment was a guy by the side of the road, holding a sign, "Homeless Indian will work for food." So, for me, photography has always been about using symbolism as expression and capturing humanity.
What didn't they teach you in camera school?
The focus was mostly on the technical side. What they don't teach is how to create spiritual and meaningful artwork. That's something that either comes with experience, or it doesn't.
What got you interested in nudes?
I didn't set out to be a fetish or an erotic photographer, my work is really about capturing beauty. I don't look at the nude as being an erotic subject, so much as the human form as a sculptural matter.
You say your style is high contrast, low key images, what does that mean?
Low key refers to using very dark backgrounds so the figures stand out. High contrast means I'm developing the image to give the figure form or flatten it out. Contrast is one tool to do that. I'm using less gradation between white and black in order to get brighter highlights, deeper blacks. I see shapes. I see positive and negative space. The background creates the negative space, the figure the positive space and the contrast is how I choose to separate them. The posing is somewhat directed, but as much as I try to direct the shot, I try not to. You get interesting results both ways.
How does nature figure into your work?
The Evolutions Gallery (referring to one of several bodies of work) is very important to me. I'm kind of an environmental nut. I have very strong beliefs about how human beings interact with nature and how they should interact. Human beings see themselves as dominating nature, when they should see themselves as simply a part of it. In attempting to dominate nature, mankind does a lot of unusual things, but nature will always outlast mankind. Evolution is a way of using nature and mankind to express some of my environmental and spiritual views. I like the idea of placing a human form in natural settings, using it as a symbolic reference.
You work with non-professionals models; why is that better than pros?
The models I use I have friendships and spiritual connections with. I don't shoot unsolicited models. If I meet someone and I'm interested in shooting them, it's usually a long process before I actually do. Most of the people I've photographed, I've known for a while. Since I don't do commercial photography or get paid to take photos of people, I think my work maintains a certain integrity and uniqueness.
You say you're an "analog photographer in a digital age". What does that mean?
The digital medium is another tool. Somebody who is using PhotoShop artistically and expressively is creating art, but I prefer the process of light and silver. I don't reject digital photography, but it doesn't speak to me in the same way. It doesn't have the same tactile quality. I like getting my fingers in the chemicals, in the film and the paper. It's the process that allows me to create; anybody can take a picture, it's what you do with it that gives it meaning.
You refer to your darkroom process as "destructive". Explain.
[The Innovations series] start with a Polaroid instant and that original picture will never be the same by the time I'm done with it. It goes through a multi-step process where some of the black tones are broken down and some of the lighter tones remain mostly true to the original. In normal photography, you have a full range of tones that you perceive. What I do, by varying the density of the tones, is bring out things you wouldn't ordinarily see. It gives the work a dream-like, surreal quality.
Mythology often figures into your work. What comes first —the idea or the image?
The process is very much intuitive. I let outside thoughts come to me, rather than direct thoughts. I may have an idea before I go out, but most of the time, the conditions dictate the actual photographs, and the conceptualization is revealed to me later through the development process.
What photographers do you like or have influenced your work?
Right off the top, Clarence John Laughlin, he's a photographer from New Orleans from the late 20s who viewed the camera as an expressive medium, and he's very poetic both with his work and with his writing. And recently, I went to the Boston Museum of Fine Art to see The Look, fashion photography from the 30s and 40s, and I was really blown away by the figural images. The work I've been most influenced by reaches back to when photography was really starting to develop as an art form that wasn't trying to look like another art form, when it was focused on capturing and abstracting reality.