Abstraction plays a significant role in my style. By showing less in my pictures, I hope to do more to the imaginations of my viewers. Whenever I can, I also try to create incongruous relationships, expressing human values to interpret subject matter and convey meaning. All of this is happening here. I caught my reflection in a window of an old house as I explored the streets of this crumbling 1890s copper mining town. Shooting from the waist, I was able to create an abstract portrait of myself as a silhouette. It incongruously merges with the red patterns of a Victorian era curtain hanging just behind the window. An even more abstract figure is softly imprinted in the aging paint next to the window. My wide-brimmed hat moves my abstracted red silhouette back into time, while the incongruous figure on the wall adds context, creating a ghostly effect.

This is the first of eight images I made while giving a field tutorial in Haynes, just outside of Jerome. In the 1890s, the village of Haynes housed Jerome’s copper miners. Today it is a commercially operated ghost town. Its ramshackle buildings house an assortment of vintage industrial equipment, including old trucks such as this one. I have a deep interest in the past, and that comes through in my photographic style. I will often make images that take my viewers back to another time and place. In this photograph, I contrast then and now by incongruously juxtaposing a dimly illuminated truck, parked just inside a dark garage, against the bright leaves of foliage. The garage and foliage here provide critical context for the truck. If I had just photographed the truck, it would be an entirely different kind of image. A major part of my photographic style is creating interaction between subject and context. In this case, the foliage is very much alive, bringing vitality and energy to the ghostly truck in that dark garage. I am implying that this truck may someday be restored, allowing it to roll out of that garage under its own power. Implication is another element of my style – I want my images to act as triggers to thought, so I do whatever I can to engage the imagination of my viewers.

I build my photographic style around symbolism and metaphor. The glass in this junked car is no longer functional. It’s a symbol of blindness. By putting my camera inside the vehicle, I can make the viewer feel blinded as well. My style feeds on implication, and by using the blindness metaphor, I imply that our knowledge of the past determines how we deal with the future. This interpretive image asks us to consider not only where we have been, but also think about where are we going. My photographic style frequently draws on such metaphors, asking questions and demanding answers.

My photographic style often draws its character from the incongruities I find along the way. An incongruity can be as small as contrasting the gleaming chrome decorating this hood and grille, to the rusted body of this vintage vehicle. Once again, my deep appreciation of the past informs my style – my vantage point stresses the Art Deco lines of both chrome and car. Deco is one of my favorite design motifs – probably because I was born when Art Deco was at its height in the mid 1930s. I can still remember the Deco curves of my father’s Chrysler, and my parent’s sleekly designed chrome Deco cocktail shaker. As I said in the introduction, we are what we photograph, and we photograph what we are. My style often generates nostalgic associations. The rust here implies the lost past. Yet the nostalgic memory of that past – the shining chrome -- still glitters in our imaginations. The car may be inert, but the presence of a thin, jagged strip of blue sky at the right hand edge of the picture implies that a rusted car with such sparkle may well rise from the dead.

My photographic style also stresses shadow play and geometry. I use the shadows of both line and curve here to complete the geometry of a vintage truck door. The shadows add an interpretive element symbolizing labor – the door handle becomes an incongruous sickle, while the long diagonal shadows of flowing lines represent bars of strength. This vehicle was used in agriculture, and even though I abstract it down to just a door, the shadows offers our imagination hints at its function.

The interior of a long abandoned building, littered with refuse, comes to life again in a cascade of light that incongruously implies rebirth. The light is passing into the room through exposed ceiling boards, creating patterns both beautiful and tragic. Beams of light have come to symbolize divine power, while exposed walls and ceilings represent decay and disaster – a conflict that draws the eye and triggers the imagination. I also include a stove, the last identifiable remnant of human habitation, to add a touch of human values. The image offers an ambiguous interpretation – does this shower of light represent a blessing or a curse? It goes against my normal style, which is to say more with less. But there are times where I gladly modify my usual style for the sake of interpretive substance. In this case, there was more to say by showing the extent of both the damage and the amazing light display. There is much here for the eye to discover, and much for the mind to think about.