For me photography is not just a record of a physical presence but a documentation of the encounter between the subject’s energy and myself. While one can define this as beauty, or some other ideal, I find it to be more complex. What draws me to a subject is something atomic, and beyond verbal explanation. Yet the camera captures it without effort. While I may use styling, situation, and technique to enhance this attraction, I rarely attempt to alter it. My perception of what this energy is defines the process I use in creating photographs and films.

The subjects in my best photographs have the feeling of existing in a perfect state. You deeply understand it but what “it” is remains elusive. The image compels the viewer to consider a larger, unseen reality not based in logic.

European cinematography has always been my strongest influence as an artist. In my work, lighting, color, composition and the way images are combined to create stories have always come from cinema. The use of a broad light source mixed with a point source is the driving force in my lighting. Open shade and the use of silks and HMI are my main tools. When I have gone in the direction of strobes and artificial light, it is the soft light of purified twilight I am after. To stand in a beautiful garden at sunrise with a fine mist still lingering in the air is to understand my ideal. Color balance is very important in my work. In the studio I recreate light drawn from memories of images I have seen.