Photography

Photography is one way I see. It helps me to organize the world into what I want to remember and what I do not. It is a selective eye that often has greater acuity than my own.

The Sacred Wood

Bomarzo is a little town about an hour’s drive outside of Rome. The Sacro Bosco is a 16th century garden of fantastic sculpture that was built near the town. The gardens of Bomarzo were conceived as an initiation of the soul. The garden is grand in scale, somewhat naïve in execution, and is nothing short of magical and mysterious. They are full of allegorical sculptural groups of ancient gods and monsters, each offering a moral riddle that hopes to enlighten the visitor as he journeys through the enchanted landscape. I hoped to capture the sense of mystery and other worldliness that pervaded the garden in my photographs. I had brought an antique 1913 Kodak Vest Pocket camera with me for this occasion. There were loading problems with the film and mechanical issues with the old mechanisms, but I like working with the limitations of individual cameras and finding a way to produce an image that exploits those limitations creatively. The prints here are the result of my trying to control the camera despite its idiosyncrasies. I find these images with their surface anomalies and atmospheric exposures in tune with the enigmatic metaphysical quality of the sculptures – the essence of the place as being both a playground of the ancient gods and a step back in time.

Bomarzo Hercules

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Bomarzo Trees

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Bomarzo Village

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Bomarzo Hercules

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Odunde III

Philadelphia holds a Pan-African festival every June named Odunde Day. These photographs are from my third time attending Odunde. It was my first time alone. This was also my last time.

Odunde 3 Series - No. 6 - Woman Waiting

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Odunde 3 Series - No. 10 - Shopping Under Umbrellas

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Odunde 3 Series - No. 12 - Annoyed Boy

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Odunde 3 Series - No. 6 - Woman Waiting

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Polaroid Series

At the age of eleven, I received a polaroid camera. This gift changed the way I took photographs, because of the quick developing of the image brought nearly instant results. I have returned to these image from that time in my artistic progression to revisit and reaccess them. As a mature artist, I find that I am drawn to the surface changes that has occurred to the images over time. The noise, tape residue, graininess and color changes that have become a part of their presence and history.