About the Photographs

The core of what I've been exhibiting for the past 12 or so years are images made with a $2 plastic Diana camera - a camera I have worked with, often alongside more traditional equipment, since 1979. This is, however, the camera I now reach for first….

All of these images - regardless of which camera was used to make them - are gold-toned black and white (gelatin silver) prints. The color you see in these images is a result of the various toners - which are used after normal development and fixing of the print. I use a number of different formulae but they all date from the late 19th and early 20th century.

Neither the results from this toy camera, nor the subsequent toning processes employed on the photographs, can be "masterminded": you get what you get. It is difficult, if not impossible, to engineer a specific result. In any event, working to achieve preconceived results is not my goal.

After more than 30 years I am delighted to simply bear witness to the images. I have come to consider myself a midwife in the image making process and I've wholly entrusted myself to the materials and to the processes. Towards that end I make use of tools and processes over which I can exert only limited control. This allows the medium itself a greater voice in the process. Ultimately, process and image must marry to be successful, and I have found that this works best when I quit masterminding the results. Only in this way can I hope to avoid recreating that which I've already seen and know, and transform the photographic process into one of learning something new about what I see.

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