Landscapes
The first scenic image that I can recall from childhood is the Mitten Butts. John Wayne rode through Monument Valley in John Ford’s Film “Stage Coach”. That scene was the beginning of my love affair with the Western genre of film.
All through my Catholic elementary school years, during the period designated “Picture Study”, I was introduced to the paintings of Cezanne, Monet, and Manet. This exposure to the impressionists, along with my early love of “cowboy movies”, established the foundation of my artistic aesthetic.
The artists I was most attracted to in my formative years were painters. Consequently, when in 1969 I was given a camera for Christmas, I started photographing scenes with a painter’s palette, rather than the eye of a photographer.
As you look at my landscapes you will see works that have a “painterly” look and composition with formal qualities of landscape painting. I do believe that if I were given a paint brush, a palette of paint , and a canvas before I was given a camera, I might have become a painter. But then, the opportunity to be in the grandeur of a landscape with a camera that allows the immediate experimentation and expressions of such experiences would not be part of my artistic life.
I cherish the experience of being awed by the spiritual connection with a landscape; and during this heightened state, being able to capture that moment through photography. The result is a photograph that is the expression of that connection.
