I arrived with a blank canvas. There were no layouts in sight and the images would unfold as though I were an instrument to be played. In a world rapidly being dominated by digital manipulation, I was challenged by the pure act of seeing. Cognitized seeing, the elevation of the ordinary to the extraordinary, accessible images manipulated not through tricks, but through facts, to show in a new way a world that you don't know. Buckmister Fuller said, "'Seeing is believing is the blind spot in man's vision."

My work deals with sensibility, not concept. Found images, no preconceived notions of what I might find in my wanderings. Quintessential photographs, deeply confused with life itself, the poetry of chance, random brushings with a world where all things are equal. Prolonged successful and prolonged, yet unsuccessful struggles. Days could often pass without so much as a single exposure; I had to be out there in order to receive these experiences.

I often felt mule-like from packing 45 pounds of gear on my back, but was able to move with freedom. I was very visible and consequently granted considerable acceptance. I was not sneaking reflections of other people's lives.

I processed my 8"x10" transparencies in bathrooms or at roadside in a renovated 21 passenger school bus. This afforded me a direct dialogue with my work. I was completely happy and thought of little except that which was in front of me.

Each day a brand-new adventure, each image a new lesson in the many lessons to come. Life and my methods seemed completely natural and harmonious. I could take as many risks as I could find.

Color is, and has for the better part of the 20th century, been the new frontier. The color photograph being almost exclusively the domain of the advertising world, a world busy stimulating need. Fine art photography has primarily been the playing field of the black and white photographer. The difficulties in making photographs where the color is an intrinsic part of the image and not simply the product of color film, is compounded by inferior commercially available color print processes.

My work relies to a large degree, on my ability to transpose to paper, the fine line detail and subtle nuances of color from the original transparency. I have achieved this by making Carbon Pigment Prints, a process with its roots in the 19th century.

A pigment based, totally permanent colour photograph, formed by making gelatin relief pigmented images of each color layer from a set of enlarged separation negatives that are then contact printed to pigment films. The relief images are mounted in exact registration to gelatin coated fine art paper. An expensive, somewhat complicated and time-consuming proposition, which for me is a near perfect fit for this work.