Artist Statement
The more photography is influenced by computerized processes, HDR plug-ins and filters that saturate images with unnatural colors, the more I want to celebrate the look and textural feel of traditional fine art, large format photographic prints. Building on my experience as a landscape/nature photographer, I have studied and experimented extensively in order to perfect a true infrared photographic technique that realizes my vision. Ultimately, I discovered that using 120mm format infrared film gives my images the super sharpness, pure blacks and intricate highlight details that are typical of large format photographs to a degree unattainable with digital cameras. I value this realism and the way that it honors the fundamental elements of traditional photography. When combined with the fantastical qualities that are characteristic of infrared work, these precise images take on a dreamlike quality that excites me. It is the contrast between the real and the surreal, the precise and the whimsical that engages the viewer and compels me to work in infrared. I invite viewers of my work to come and enjoy a photographic art form that has become nearly extinct in the digital HDR age.