05-DEC-2002
Craftsman, DumaZulu, South Africa
I asked this Zulu craftsman, through a gesture and a smile, if he would sit for a portrait. He was indifferent to my request, but voiced no objection. I placed my camera on the ground, flipped the rotating LCD viewfinder up so I could look down into it, and went to work. He seemed pleasantly puzzled by the process, and yielded a portrait that spoke of both patience and puzzlement, values understood by humans everywhere.
21-MAR-2003
No Sale, Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2003
On a cold spring day, Native American crafts were selling slowly in front of the oldest public building in the US, Santa Fe's Palace of the Governors. I concentrated my attention on a vendor whose display was separated from the others. Although ignored and chilled to the bone, she stays the course as animated shoppers browse in the background. This contrast conveys the point of the picture via human values – determination and endurance.
11-SEP-2003
State Fair, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2003
Clutching a bag of popcorn and wearing a western style hat, a young fellow enjoys posing for Santa Fe Workshop photographers at New Mexico's State Fair. Using a colorful background of stacked hats, other photographers set up their shots as straight-on environmental portraits. I crouched off to one side, and used a low camera positon to feature his enthusiastic response, and make the towers of hats stacked behind him seem to soar as high as his spirits.
Minding the Store, Pokhara, Nepal, 1988
A long lens helped me reach out and capture this grouping of Nepalese from across a busy street. Using three doorways at a store's entrance, I created a frame within a frame, stressing the gulf separating this man from the three women, most likely members of his family. This photo implies separation -- a very basic human value, and in this case, an insight into Nepalese culture.