Artist Statement

excerpt from “Two Gallants” by James Joyce

"The grey warm evening of August had descended upon the city and a mild, warm air, a memory of summer circulated in the streets. Like illuminated pearls the lamps shone from the summits of their tall poles upon the living texture below which, changing shape and hue unceasingly, sent up into the warm grey evening air an unchanging unceasing murmur."

The majority of my work is an after dark, pre-dawn exploration of urban, suburban, and industrial environments. My ambition is the creation of a visual record bearing witness to the majesty and stoicism of these subjects and architecture. My work is made on a large format analog camera with Kodak Portra film, utilizing long exposures with only available light in an effort to produce images that illustrate the "truth" of a scene. The negatives are then scanned and output as digital files and edited to accurately represent the negative in Photoshop CC.

With a combination of environmental portraits in home, work and play settings I attempt to illustrate the strength of a people in the midst of a challenging period in human history. As North America is in a phase of de-industrialization, particularly in manufacturing centres, I am interested in creating work that supposes allegories representing the flexibility and adaptive strength of these resilient inhabitants. The dignity of the scenes photographed in this work has gradually grown outward from inside these homes and workplaces out of the necessities and character of the inhabitants.

The interest of the photographers associated with New Topographic movement of the 1970s was to identify a critical view of the current state of America. While a great influence, my interest, however, is to look at the everyday urban/suburban landscape with a sense of awe and respect, coloured with the night time mixed-up lighting situations of the available, artificial light and long exposure. This work is a documentary of the stories of our present times, yet ever changing. The exchange between life and work is a primary concern in which my intention is to further extend the explorations of early documentary photographers into what the present world will look like as a past era.