It’s all too easy to walk down the street without noticing what’s around us, unaware and closed off.  If we do look around, it’s to see what our expectations have primed us to see, instead of perceiving what is actually there.

When I walk down the street with a camera in my hands it breaks that habit for me.  Suddenly I am able to really see the world around me.  And what I see fills me with wonder.  The combination of patterns and textures, subtle color changes:  peeling paint on a garage door; lichen on an eaten-away concrete wall; the spots in the throat of a single rhododendron blossom.  These very simple things reveal a complex and profound beauty that moves me deeply.  I want to stop everyone that passes by, to say to everyone I know:  Look at this!  Look at how incredible this is!  Have you ever seen anything SO amazing?  

Photography allows me the opportunity to do that:  to capture the vision that so astounds me and offer it directly to others.

I am particularly drawn to close-up work because it draws attention to those details that are so often overlooked, and because the context shift that places those details in suddenly unfamiliar surroundings disrupts my preconceptions and opens my way to truly seeing.  Playing with fields of focus is another way I consciously shift away from the expected context.  The concrete becomes abstract becomes miraculous.