The trajectory of one’s artistic life is altered by many diverse situations; a considered and deliberate course change, an influence by friends and colleagues, the occasional happy accident, and a chance meeting with Fate’s younger sister, Serendipity. This body of work came about with the acquisition of my first large format camera, a wooden 4 X 5 I purchased in 1980. At the time I thought this was the biggest camera I would ever hope to own. Little did I realize how wrong that observation would turn out to be. I had been a photographer for 10 years at this point and had become a fairly accomplished printer, working with a 645 camera and making 16 X 20 inch prints. But I have always loved big images (when I was painting, my typical canvas size was 7 X 11 feet). I felt the negatives could not carry a 20 X 24 print with the quality I wanted, but was unsure as to the direction to proceed. I then found a book that changed the course of my life. It was "Women and Other Visions", a joint project of figurative portraits by Judy Dater and Jack Welpott. I had purchased two original prints from the book, one by Judy and one by Jack and was overwhelmed by the beauty of the prints. All were shot on 4 X 5. This was the answer. After saving for months, I arrived home one Saturday afternoon with a truckload of new equipment; camera, lens, tripod, enlarger, and all of the peripherals. Ten years of Christmas’ could not equal the joy of that day.

I spent the next 11 years exclusively shooting nudes in the landscape. I shot almost 15,000 negatives in that time, a selection of which you will see here. I worked with only one lens in the making of these images, a 180mm Nikkor, a normal lens for this format. I would take 60 film holders with me, my camera on a tripod and my model and head out into the local wildernesses available to me here in Southern California. With the exception of one startled Church picnic group, we always had solitude in which to work. We finished when all 120 sheets of film were shot. It has always been a necessity for all photographers to try to further work done before us. I have endeavored to put my own style on this work, with unusual compositional strategies and a more portrait oriented image, to make them different from what has been done previously.

All of the work are silver gelatin prints archivally processed in selenium. Print sizes available are 11 X 14, 16 X 20, and my preferred size of 20 X 24. Prints come matted in 4-ply rag front and back and are signed on the prints and on the front of the matt.