entropy
When I began to take photography seriously as a way of expressing myself artistically I learned a painful but important lesson. I was attending a workshop presented by the photographer David Plowdon, whose work I respect greatly. As part of the workshop the participants had the opportunity for a portfolio review. While he said that my photographs were "nice," they lacked any cohesion, a statement, an expression of what I was trying to say with them.
On the way home that afternoon I decided that I could either put all of my camera equipment for sale on eBay and take up needlepoint, or I could take to heart what David said and work on this aspect of my work. I spent weeks thinking about the kinds of things that attracted my eye. I became aware that seeing what happened to man's creations when he stopped expending energy to maintain them had been something that interested me my entire life.
One definition of the word entropy, the gradual decline of order into disorder, seemed to describe the theme of what this body of work would become.
I felt that the individual photographs in the body of work should be printed in the same style to promote a sense of cohesion, a style that would be sympathetic to the work. I decided that lith printing, with its gritty shadows and delicate creamy highlights would best present the work.
"Entropy" has been a project that I have returned to many times over the past twenty years. I found the subjects of the photographs in many different and varied places from close to home to South Dakota, Detroit, Iceland, and Cuba.
