Displaced Persons
Consider this: when you are in an automobile moving down a road at night, visions of land and people distorted by darkness and rain, conversation and reverie, imagination will often make up for what cannot be seen.
These images are informed by what I understand to be the structure of dreams: that is, I am not reporting my particular dreams, but communicating a sense of the familiar anticipating something significant or uncanny; a rendering of anxiety about reality.
Process note:
The human figures and scenes were shot separately on 35 mm black-and-white film: the figures in a studio; the scenes on location at night or in low light, where extended exposure often creates unexpected blurring, transparency, and lighting. After scanning the film to make digital files, I use image-editing software to composite the figures and scenes, and to enhance the atmosphere created in the shooting. When an image is completed, the digital file is sent to a photo lab, where either a print or a 4 x 5-inch negative is made (using the negative, I make a print on gelatin silver paper in the darkroom).
I received a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award: Photography, in 2001, 2003, 2007, and 2009 for images from this series.
