September 2, 2025
The Art of Passing Through
Travel reminds us that we are always in motion, even when we stand still. Each place we enter is already full of its own life and history; we step into it briefly, like walking through a doorway that was never meant to close behind us. Passing through is not about collecting everything—it is about finding what the moment offers and letting the rest remain where it belongs.
Short visits carry a particular energy. Everything is new, every turn a discovery. The first impressions are unfiltered, unshaped by routine. Photography in these moments becomes instinctive—you respond to what appears without hesitation—like holding water in your hands, knowing most will slip away, but some will stay with you forever.
Spending more time in a place changes the rhythm. At first you notice the obvious—the landmarks, the colors, the easy subjects. Then the subtleties emerge: how shadows gather differently at midday than at dusk, how the same street hums with a different life in the rain. The camera becomes an instrument of patience rather than reaction. Photography becomes less about taking and more about receiving. You will never see it all, and that is part of the beauty. Passing through allows you to let go of ownership and simply bear witness.
In black and white, this way of seeing becomes even more distilled. Stripped of color, the essence of the moment is revealed—light, shape, and gesture stand apart. These images are not a complete record; they are fragments, honest in their incompleteness.
To pass through is to understand that beauty often lives in what is left unfinished. To photograph is to hold onto a moment without trying to keep it from moving on.
August 21, 2025
“Photography is from the heart, it, like all creative acts, is intimate and personal and totally subjective to those viewing it.”
Paul Sanders
Photography is not only an artistic act, but also a contemplative one—a quiet reception of subject, light, space and even time. It can begin not with the camera, but with a feeling, an inner impulse that precedes any technical decision. Before aperture or composition, there is attention. Before the shutter is pressed, there is presence.
A photograph, then, is not solely a record of a thing. It is a reflection of a relationship—a testimony to how things interrelate and lean toward unity. Light falls on a wall, a figure shifts in the frame, and something is revealed—not just the subject, but the space between things, the rhythm they share, the silent music of their being.
In this way, the photographer approaches the image not as something to be taken or recorded, but as a kind of manifestation—a meeting point between the outer world and an inner sensibility. The moment deserves attention, respect, and tranquility. Every image can become a bridge, a connection between what is seen and the echo it stirs within.
Most articles about improving photography include discussions about slowing down and being in the moment. This can certainly help with seeing—really seeing—not just looking. It’s almost Zen-like. In this state, the photographer can assume the role of both creator and witness, much like a painter or poet. Photography becomes not merely a means of capturing the world, but a way of entering into dialogue with it.
July 31, 2025
Suggestion is one of the more powerful tools a photographer can use - inviting the viewer to pause, to wonder, to engage beyond the surface.
Photography is a personal journey into finding out who we really are. That is what makes it so special; it is our own universe to express individuality. At its core, Fine Art Black and White Photography is an art form that can push visual boundaries to the edges of reality and create heightened emotional responses that allows for a two-way dialogue between the artist and viewer.
Because photography reflects how we see the world - and how we want others to see it - it becomes philosophical. Color photography is more literal, while black and white photography is more figurative. I work in black and white mainly because of this abstract quality. By reinterpreting reality this way, photography can create worlds that challenge the mind to think outside the box, to experiment with minimalism, contrast and structure in ways that color photography might not allow.
Stripping away color helps me distill my vision to focus more on light, form and feelings without distraction and to look beyond the obvious and search for the image’s essence.
In some ways black and white photography can be a very meditative practice, as it encourages a slower pace to study the quality of light more attentively and to make intuitive creative choices. The psychological effect of this is similar to practicing mindfulness.
Why black and white photography? By removing color a whole new world of beauty and simplicity emerges. Paradoxically, black and white images might just make life a bit more colorful.
June 15, 2025
“In the quiet interplay of light and shadow, amidst the stark simplicity of form, lies the power of minimalistic photography to evoke profound emotions within the viewer. Each frame captures a fleeting moment, distilling the essence of human experience into its purest elements.”
In the past when someone would ask me, “What drew you to photograph that?” or “Why did you photograph it that way?” I would simply say that it was the way I saw the subject. For a long time, it seemed like a simple question that needed a simple answer. But as I’ve matured as an artist, the answer has often been beyond the power of words to describe. For me, my photographs reflect feelings I have about the subject and how I want to express and share them with the viewer.
I just love everything about photography. The actual capture of the image, the processing, the printing, the mounting: these are all time-consuming steps in the final expression of the my vision, and they are all extremely enjoyable. I take pleasure in every phase as I move closer to the final print, each step connecting me again with the subject and with my feelings for it. What makes a photograph powerful is the sense it gives the viewer that the photographer cared passionately and intensely about his subject, about the way that he saw it, and about every detail of the final print.
This image, “Winter Grass,” is a roadside scene that I had passed several times before. I always thought that it looked interesting, but somehow I never had the time to go back to it and make a photograph; I was always hurrying home from photographing somewhere else. This time, however, I was heading to a place in central Oregon to photograph and snow had closed the roads to where I wanted to go, so I thought about finally going back to spend some time with the grass. The way the winds had sculpted the grass, the angle of the fence, and the tones of the image gave me goose bumps then, and I still get them now.
I can’t think of anything I would rather do, or of anything that brings me more satisfaction than this journey from the viewfinder to the final print that I hold in my hands, expressing my personal response to nature’s beauty.
April 13, 2025
“There exists in the seeing of nature, in any seeing, a delicate balance between the chaos of ignorance with its gift of freshness, and the order of knowledge, with its curse of restricted vision. All attempts to understand seeing involve, to some extent, the discussion of order and chaos, with their associated gifts and evils.”
Steven Meyers, On Seeing Nature
I can’t tell you how many times I have gone out to photograph with a sense of excitement accompanied by a sense of fear. Not a fear of the elements or environment but more a fear of seeing. A fear that it has all been done before and probably better, and what can I do to see things differently, illustrating my way or perhaps my style of seeing and ultimately printing.
What the world doesn't need is more of the same landscape photographs we have had for over a hundred and sixty years. But how can a photographer go to a familiar or famous location and create something new, something to inspire a fresh vision? The natural tendency for me is to start to repeat what I have had success with before, with the result that things start to look the same.
Lately I have tried to spend more time with a scene, to take more time to sense what it is that actually told me that something here has triggered a response. I try to take the time to follow those feelings and respond in a sensitive way, to enjoy the sense of freshness of my discovery in a unique, individual style that I have invested time, emotion, and thought into. It might look like a tree or a rock, but it is my tree or my rock, seen only as I saw it at that moment using my internal vision. Sometimes it can be a matter of excluding unrelated information from a scene, or including information about the sense of place and light.
It is the exquisite tension of being in a place physically and experiencing the beauty and the sublime, independent of intellectual understanding to a large extent. Photography lies in the gift of immediate perception, of feeling and not of intellectualizing it. That will come later when we engage with a viewer.
