I make my photographs by taking my camera with me on “visual scavenger hunts.” Unlike the scavenger hunts of my youth, which began with a list of items to be sought out in a prescribed period of time, those I engage in now start without knowing what I’m looking for and occur without concern for time.  I trust that my subject will reveal itself during the hunt.  And once discovered, it’s my intent to record what I’ve found in a way that is not only personally satisfying, but also in keeping with the modernist aesthetic that emphasizes the harmonious arrangement of formal pictorial elements within the flat, two-dimensional space of the picture plane.   

The photographs themselves are typically of common things seen in an uncommon way.  I take particular satisfaction in finding my subject matter among those things that are normally overlooked due to their presumed insignificance.  Rather than wanting to show everything about a particular subject, I’m more interested in pursuing the reductivist aesthetic that encourages eliminating everything from the visual field except that which is essential in the creation of an effective work of art.  In this respect I embrace German-born American architect Mies van der Rohe’s dictum that “less is more.”

At a point when photographic technology permits, if not encourages, the production of complex imagery on a larger and larger scale, I take satisfaction in creating carefully crafted images on a more intimate scale.  Rather than forcing the viewer to back away to see the entire image, I prefer for the viewer to be drawn in to “reading distance” to discover details otherwise unnoticed.

I once heard a radio commercial in which it was stated “life is a treasure hunt, but you have to know where to find the treasure.”  In the end, I believe this to be particularly true of my life as a fine art photographer.  I’ve spent countless hours searching for, and attempting to create, “visual treasure.”  Hopefully, the viewers of my photographs will find them to be “new found treasures” which will stand the test of close examination and prove worthy of remembering in their minds’ eye long after an initial viewing.