Artist Statement...or something

Statements and biographies are always a hard thing for me to write.  In one instance I can be the gaunt bohemian screaming of a picture ‘The inner pain of my burning soul is expressed through her enigmatic smirk while the juxtaposition of the sun and moon shows …blah blah blah”; whilst later I’ll be the rather grounded individual looking back at the bohemian self going “Dude. Crack is bad.” Needless to say, I’m simplistically complex, half-heartedly cynical, mostly jaded, and entirely eccentric.

I picked up my first camera around age 6 or 7.  I’d like there to be some fantastic and inspiring story of how I took some random photo, found inspiration, won a lot of awards and my life went from there.  Truth is, I could’ve cared less when I got it. It was some dinky 110 film camera that when pressed to my head looked like a visor from Star Trek™.  I’d occasionally take pictures, they’d usually be “eh”.  The only thing I could do, retrospectively, was compose an image and frame it rather well.   I only had this trick because my mother and brother were artists and we three would draw together sometimes.  They produced materials suited for show.  I produced materials suited for the condescending refrigerator placement with an “Aww honey, I love it!” of false sincerity.  Ever tried to bring home art projects of menial quality to a master-class artist?  Doesn’t really go over well no matter how hard they try and lie through it.  But, I persevered and promptly stopped pretending I had talent.  Instead, I waited for nearly another decade before another attempt at art.

In 2001 I went on a birthright trip to Israel.  It was fantastic.  I would love to go back – except when I was there I had armed guards, escorts (Government, you freak), and people who spoke Hebrew surrounding me.  But the scenery was phenomenal.  Before I left my friend Elisha let me borrow her camera.  Going through El Al security with a camera you barely know a thing about – not a good idea.  They were convinced it was a bomb for probably a few seconds as I stumbled to try and remember my friend’s last name.  I eventually gave them the last name of her boyfriend.  Worked for me, worked for them.  Once there, I burned through some 20 rolls of film in 10 days.  Had I had a digital camera like I do now – I would’ve easily of taken 20 gigs of images.  But I digress.  Needless to say – since then I have stuck with the camera. 

Generally I’m supposed to talk about my work now.  I have two very distinctly different styles I shoot in.   Typically my black and white work is very traditional and classic.  I rarely edit anything in those images that cannot be done in a dark room.  If I could manage it, I’d still work these images in a dark room.  However, that’s entirely cost prohibitive.  

In contrast, my color work typically is pretty out there.  My friend Patrick once called it “the dark weird shit”.  It kind of is.  I had one image, of my little sister – a sweet girl, put into a show and shoved in the corner because it “frightened people”.  Not my fault giant yellow eyes creep people out.  I thought it was an awesome image.  And after all, it was in the show. 

Most of the ideas just randomly come to me.  The black and whites are often just a “well, I have this general premise that we’ll play with and go from there”.  Those are fun shoots sometimes.  The colors are usually a bit more planned.  I actually carry a book with me all the time that I draw (badly, remember I can’t draw) the ideas down and then do my best to accomplish those ideas.  I don’t like to photoshop images too much – I’d like to set up the entire scene and the camera to the best of my abilities.  Anyone can take a picture these days it seems, I have to separate myself somehow.

Anyway, that’s kind of me.  Well, at least in the mood I am in right now.  Definitely fighting to put parts of this in Latin.