These journals function both as records of daily life and as common- place books, containing ideas, information and inspirations. In 1996, I began compiling an image resource file in book form that…

When photographing, I turn the lens on whatever interests me and often following drastically different trains of thought. Once a patter or habit emerges, I then dedicate more focused time on…

Focal Plane journal. was a peer-reviewed quarterly printed journal project dedicated to recognizing photography teachers for their superior work both in and outside the classroom, as well as…

Ten Years East is a collection of photographs spanning my first decade living in Eastern North Carolina. These images explored how the idea of "place," along with regional ideologies, inform the ways in which artists view the world. The monograph contains sixty photographs, and is accompanied by an introductory essay along with an excerpt from The People, Place, and Space Reader, by Jen Jack Gieseking, William Mangold, Cindi Katz, Setha Low, and Susan Saegert.

Cameras naturally carry the dual perception of being both a device to capture images of the world and a tool to aid an artist in achieving his or her vision of the world. In the first example, novices rely on presets of the device to make the photograph happen. In the latter, trained photographers first conceptualize the image they wish to create and then manipulate the device to achieve that vision.

My handmade book aesthetic is centered around small, more intimately scaled productions. Most of these books are inspired in-part by the material itself. Often, their visual structure is the result of instantaneous conceptualization. I hate to say it, because it is quite often cliche, but "the material speaks to me." A better way to phrase this is I draw heavily from intuition and usually a found object seems appropriate for inclusion in a particular book, so I make that book as a place for it to live.

Dementia, in the personal experience of watching my grandmother slip away, has shown me that the slow death of memory is more like a living death. Elsie Elkins was a world traveler, an air force wife who lived in several different countries and hosted elegant parties for foreign dignitaries. Throughout her travels my grandmother, like so many others, collected numerous souvenirs from the places she visited and lived. These artifacts are physical representations of the memories associated with those places; and, it is with more than appropriate irony that the French word for memories is "souvenir."

"Hangar Flying: Reflections on War and Baseball," is an original play I wrote that was produced by the Kennedy Family Theatre at Barton College. Adam J. Twiss, then then director of theatre at Barton, described the play as “a war-time tapestry, woven from the memoirs and anecdotes of family members both real and imagined. The light-hearted, poignant epic takes us on a journey through World War II and Korean combat, where characters gain insight into culture and personal humanity through a shared international touchstone of baseball.”

Having always been a collector of things – bottle caps, scientific apparatuses, cameras, fabrics, fibers, dirt and coffee cups to name a few – my eyes are constantly scanning the environment for interesting articles of any sort to add to my sets of curios. Often these items are the discarded materials of life, never amounting to much material worth. A ruddy scrap of paper with an only partially decipherable message holds far more interest to me than items deemed valuable by the cultural establishment. For me these things are the true indicators of society. I find a different kind of value in the litter and refuse left behind as people pass through life. These articles indicate something far more telling about the social landscape and man’s impact on the environment. And, there is something about garbage that is universal even though individual items are unique.

This collective portfolio entitled Betrothed represents pieces my wife and I have completed on our own and work we have done collaboratively. Themes explored in the associated exhibition are ones of natural curiosity hinting upon elements of Romanticism and Transcendentalism fueled by heartfelt, mutual admiration for each other's work. In our youths, both Amanda and I were reared in environments that encouraged travel, exploration of nature, studies of science and of other cultures. Each of our backgrounds in education includes practical sciences, sociology, literature and history in addition to the visual arts. These shared similarities, along with the fact we share a studio, have led to our interests converging in our art.

To some extent I have always approached photography as if I were a cultural anthropologist, using the camera as a tool to collect specimens and conduct research. Perhaps this notion was influenced but my rearing in a family of scientists. Or, perhaps it came from travelling to nearly all 50 of the United States, living in five, as well as in another country. Throughout these sojourns, I have of course been privy to many different ways of doing, saying and expressing the same ideas. This sameness with difference lies at the root of my curiosity and my work has evolved to include a great many observations.

Photography is largely a medium responsive to observation more than conceptualization. Sure, one might imbue a particular image with forethought, planning and insight, but the execution of the image is done solely by the acts of looking and responding to that which is observed. In my observations of the world I tend to approach a scene by isolating one certain element that stands out on a personal level. Once selected, I examine that object by probing it with my eyes and the lens, picking it apart into minute sections. Back in the studio these studies and details are then deciphered as a Romantic might contemplate the experiences of the day and are placed onto the canvas in a manner, which explores the latent mood of my observations. The tree ceases to be just a tree, becoming a tablet containing my impression of the object combined with my mental, emotional state of being. As I develop the surface textures my thoughts once more become contemplative, meditative, almost unconscious, while I recreate the memory of the landscape. The resulting image preserves the faceted act of observation and something of the spirituality of the place.

Cartography is simply the making of maps, but more specifically it can be described as the combination of geography and aesthetics for effectively communicating ideas. Having grown up in a family of scientists, one of whom is a practicing cartographer, it should come as no surprise that I have always had an affinity for collecting and creating maps of various kinds. Throughout life I have documented travels by marking roads taken in an oversized U.S. atlas, as well as on a wall-sized poster in my office. Additionally maps have long been integrated into many collages produced in artist journals for the symbolic effect of invoking a sense of travel, wanderlust, discovery and knowledge.

Typically the medium of photography has the built-in assumption that the object under scrutiny is a "real" thing, an actual object or a scene, which truly took place. Upon moving from Atlanta to rural Eastern North Carolina I became interested in the façades of buildings and how the physical presence of that business functions as a package identity. Business identities are worn on the façades, and often exude a cultural message. Some businesses are new and portray an ethnic identity, while others appear to have remained unchanged since the 1960s. For aesthetics, these scenes were photographed to look like scale models and toy structures. A pun and cliché that I am intentionally exploiting in the images is the concept of a "model community." When hobbyists construct an artificial environment they do so to suit their own predispositions and ideals. Every self-made business person also aspires to some ideal, manifest in the visual identity of their business. Likewise, this reduction of façades to a model-like appearance captures the essence of these anthropological gems from my own point of view.

In "The Society of the Spectacle," Guy Debord describes and critiques a commodity culture dependent, driven and defined by images. In this model, it is the image that is all important, shaping one's perceptions, altering viewpoints and turning all form and experience into mere representations of reality. This body of images, entitled "Of Produce and Perception," address the Spectacle in relation to the processing of information by consumers within such a society. Each photograph depicts an article that any consumer would find in the produce section of their local supermarket. The objects are nothing exotic or special–pears, broccoli, carrots, bananas–banal and commonplace to say the least. But each photograph is displayed quite large, More than a meter square. This enlarged scale brings the quite common and recognizable produce items away from their banality and presents them as more confrontational in stature.

These works are intended to evoke the particular connotation of an experience which is familiar yet distant in the mind of the viewer. Each image is captured with a hand-built camera and lens, which explains the imperfect pictorial qualities inherent in the body of photographs. While working on this project I wanted to create a timeless feeling and sense of nostalgia without becoming too overt in period reference or shtick. Subject matter therefore became quite varied as I made use of what was put before the lens, not seeking out or specifically authoring scenes.

These images are the results of an attempt to capture the fleeting, banal moments of existence as things of beauty, while not denying that they are in fact temporal and momentary–in a sense creating significance where none is readily noticed. Each photograph, captured by a modified camera, is more about instantaneous recognition, without focused reflection, than a conscious effort to dramatize a scene. Much of this work came to form by integrating a mode of constantly taking photographs into commonplace daily activities: commuting to work, grocery shopping, picking up the dry cleaning and such tasks where aesthetics rest low on the mental register. As I would perform these menial responsibilities, specifically when attention would falter, snap shots would be made to record slices of life and documents of that which is normally overlooked. This process was not so much about glorifying the banal as reflecting on the nature of subconscious visual perception. Observation was an artifact not the intention of the event.

In 1998, I received a scholarship from Delta Airlines to attend a study abroad program in Italy. Specifically, while on this program I studied book arts and paper making, but having recently completed my degree requirements in photography I roamed the countryside, camera in hand. The trip was my first time out of the country and I felt intimidated by the many artists and photographers whom had come before me. Everywhere I turned was some sweeping vista or architectural marvel that was oh so familiar from history books. Each time I lifted the camera to my eye it was as though I was looking through someone else's lens - a gaze that was not my own, but borrowed from some master. Instead of replicating the images in my mind, or even sidestepping around these mental pictures, I turned instead to the overlooked back alleys and off the beaten path places not frequented by tourists. These slices from the Italian cities and countryside represent my intimate, often solitary, exploration of what tourists don't travel there to see.