Statement of working process

 

All of my work is based on specific personal memories and is constructed solely from them.

 

For the photographic works, I begin by making rough sketches of places and things from my past that seem relevant to themes I am thinking about at a particular time. Working directly from these sketches, I make working template drawings to solidify the dimensions of each item I will be working with and to get the correct feel of the piece. From these drawings I then make schematic drawings that will be documented and then cut out for assembly. This is all done by hand.

 

After they are cut out, they are folded and tabbed into their final 3 dimensional formats. Whenever possible these are cut out in one piece from a single sheet of paper. Since I do not use any kind of documented reference material other than my memory, this often takes several tries to get everything right.

 

After all of the items and structures are built necessary for each image, I work through the view of the camera to assemble the scene. I use a 35 mm SLR digital camera with several different lenses. During this process, I begin arranging the lights to manipulate the desired atmosphere.All of the color in the images comes from the lights. Everything is built with white Bristol vellum paper.

 

After many photos are taken, they are downloaded to the computer for printing. I print with archival ink-jet inks on watercolor paper made specifically for the printer. I will do a little tweaking of the images in Photoshop, but only enough to make them decently printable. I want the images to be read as I saw them in the camera without being overly enhanced or exaggerated.