Why do you have a section just for the Pacific Northwest?
I live in Southeast Portland, and am literally no more than two hours away from waterfalls, high desert, snow covered mountains, and an ocean. Its amazing living here. So, of course, its very easy to take day trips to these locations, and take a camera with me. It is only natural that a large portion of my portfolio would evolve into photos taken in the Pacific Northwest. It is such a esthetically unique part of this country, I feel it deserves its own gallery.
What camera gear do you shoot with?
Right now, I am shooting with the amazing Fuji GFX 50s. A lot of my early work was photographed with a Hasselblad 501 or a Mamiya 7. When I switched to digital, I used Canon in the early days but switched to Nikon as they became the best in terms of image and lens quality. But now I am just in love with the Fuji. The image quality, sharpness, dynamic range, and high ISO abilities are amazing and continue to impress me.
Where is your favorite place to photograph?
I can't say it enough - I love living in the Portland area. Its almost too easy to see and photograph beautiful things. That being said, I found New Zealand to be one of the most visually inspiring places I have ever been. I'm fortunate enough to have been there a couple of times, and already have plans to go back a few more.
Where do you want to photograph next?
Iceland. Iceland. Iceland. Get me to Iceland, yesterday.
Describe your work in the America's gallery.
Originally, most of that work came from three cross country road trips I took. Two of those trips were with Travis Patterson, of Travis Patterson Studios, where we drove for six weeks and 14,000 miles from DC to San Diego to Seattle, and every national park in between that we could think of. One of the trips was for my move from Florida to Oregon, which was not specifically a photo mission, but still yielded some really great photographs. As with all my work, I wander, I see something that inspires me, and I try to photograph it in a way that showcases what I'm seeing. Most recently, because of my job as a pilot, I've seen quite a bit more of America and have been happily adding to this portfolio of work.
Describe your work in the Hotels gallery:
As a pilot, I spend a lot of times in hotel rooms. As an artist, I decided to try and document it. I see so much of this country, but a lot of the time its just through the hotel window. Its a boring and sometimes isolating pattern. Land, take a hotel shuttle to the hotel, sleep, wake up, go back to the airport. Same hotel rooms essentially, with different views out the windows. I wanted to center the windows in each frame to emphasize how each scene is ultimately very similar to the others. And I decided to fade the images to distance the viewer from each photograph, enhancing the feeling of isolation.
Describe your work in the Duplicity gallery:
This was a project I took on several years ago, and wish to continue. Its quite simple really. The people you see out in public, are not the same people in private. I wanted to photograph each couple in a boring, almost stale environment using pretty standard lighting. And in the next photograph, I wanted to capture each couple doing something they enjoyed doing.
Do you use photoshop?
Yes. I primarily use it as a tool to improve an image so it mimics how I remember a scene. A camera is only so capable of capturing something. It is up to the photographer to fine tune, and ultimately present that image in the way that allows the viewer to experience what the photographer envisioned. While I try to avoid using heavy filters, and visually obvious extremes in my editing, I am most guilty of photoshopping out certain parts of a scene that I feel distracts from the final image. For example, if I am photographing something that does not have a human presence as the main subject, I do what I can to remove all indications that a person had ever been there, such as power lines or footprints.