Artist's Statement
Passion,
I have this... thing I call it a passion It is a feeling, a desire, a need I have... to look at people. I imagine it is sort of like the way some people have a thing for reading. I am a trained observer. I worked as a police officer for thirteen years. For the most part, that was fun, (being paid to look) a front row seat to the greatest show on earth. It's not like a construction worker girl-watching on his lunch-hour... more like the way people get so absorbed in a book store. I try to watch /read people whenever I get a chance. 'I try not to stare. I would sit and watch people all day if I could. In '87 1 became disabled. I could not do all of the things I used to do. So I picked up a camera and took this "thing" to a new level.
People
I am not a "dance photographer" as such. Although much of my work is movement oriented I photograph people - some of them dancers. I take photography literally, writing with light. People's faces, expressions, gestures and their environments speaking volumes.
There are no tricks here, no computer enhancements, just straight photography.
Dance
When I picked up the camera, I began taking photography classes at a local community college. While there I kind of rediscovered dance. My eye had always been attracted to and by dance. I began to photograph dancers as a project for a Photo -2 class. That was five years ago, a project that I hope I never finish. I like my images to contain the subject's energy that energy sometimes pushing at the frame of the imav. Sometimes moving other times not - yet straining to be released. I try to separate tlfe dancers from the dance. Free them from any choreography, make them, their form, their personality the content of the photos. There is an obvious paradox between dance and photography. A photograph being the least suited medium for something so interconnected and seamless.
I am not interested in photographing someone else's art work, much less someone's choreography. I think no efforts to attempt to capture the essence of a particular dance composition on paper can do that piece justice. Such photography becomes the ugly stepsister of dance. Dancers stepping in front of my camera whether in the photo studio, dance studio or on location will have to leave their choreography in the dressing room. In fact, my work is almost divorced from the stage. While all my photographs are a collaboration between my subject and me, I want some amount of control, not to be a mere observer documenting events. Their expression or movement captured on film may never be seen on-stage, making this work all "original" with our creative signatures.
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