ARTIST STATEMENT REGARDING
BLACK & WHITE INFRARED PHOTOGRAPHY

With my camera, I look for visual metaphors in the landscape. Later, in the darkroom (I use medium format film for my black and white images) and in the studio (I scan in my negatives in order to produce a detailed file), I adjust the resulting output in an effort to describe and commit to memory my interpretation of what I saw. For me, this is a struggle against impermanence and a resistance to loss. I photograph with black and white infrared film, because it captures both the visible spectrum and the infrared light that lies beyond what the human eye can apprehend.
Qualities that defy physical description work hand in hand with using a film that records evidence of things unseen. This medium also accentuates the contrast between light and shadow, enhancing a sense of the obscure and the mysterious and therefore underscoring the limitations of our perception. I am obsessed with collecting layers of visual input that inform me, creating an array of spiritual and metaphysical possibilities for contemplation. Uncovering, in a transcendent sense, aspects of existence of which we would otherwise be unaware (since we are all physiologically incapable of discerning whatever lies beyond a limited area of the light spectrum) is awe-inspiring; it is a primary motivating force in my work.

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