I don't have anywhere else to share this with that it would mean anything but it is the 20th anniversary of when I began my Lightscapes series which was just an experiment in a photo workshop with Arno Minkkinen in August 2003 in Maine.

Our group went to a lake to photograph and a person let me borrow their Holga camera. It was a great day and I could even feel something was happening you know like when an artist gets an instinct about making something in the process it feels bigger than themselves, they are harnessing what cannot be forced but as if one where to walk into it. I remember Arno said the kids I photographed trusted me because I walked the water. Which I literally did all my clothes soaked walking into the lake but sometimes you must do those kinds of things and that it is worth some social awkwardness and discomfort especially when people trust and let you in, especially the most important subjects for one to truly earn their respect and trust is kids. It has always been the greatest honor when it has occurred and I have been extremely fortunate.

  Seeing the photos results the following day helped me find this lifeline in eventually the body of work that would be Lightscapes some years later when I was struggling photographically. It will always mean more to me personally than some experimental body of work that I don't know if others can surmise. I don't know if the personal translates through it's "artistic" appearance. I had to learn to rely on myself and some sort of feeling tethered toward intention and fate despite a great flaw of mine is fatalism. I don’t think my pictures reveal that layer of myself. I really love my work. I just wanted to say something because I want to claim what I love and my work brings me meaning and confirmation that being alive is worthwhile through all of it.

 

R.I.P Tim, remember when we picked this song out for the slideshow? I remember that self portrait you took the surprise double exposure of the 4th of July fireworks burst I hope you kept it. I'm glad you confided in me and that you felt good to open up and I hope that helped you or even if you forgot it still lived somewhere inside that made you feel ok. I found the photos I took at your showing at Niagara bar and emailed them to your sister. A lot of people who knew you better and longer than I did are in a lot of pain right now because they loved you so much. I wrote out to your sister that love is truly stronger than grief and I believe that all those people's moments with you the love and joy they can feel and remember is what will carry get them through this tragedy. Love is the only thing that can hold a higher potency than pain and you had so much to give and share and them to you as well. Though you could feel and understood darkness and depth you contained jubilation, curiosity, love, creativity, integrity, sincerity, devotion, humor oscillating between light and dark, inquisitiveness, dedication, and explorative and humanistic, a full and fleshed good person. Your life looked so beautiful and bountiful in the photos and you looked like finally found something had settled. I'm sorry you were not finished and I'm sorry we hadn't spoken in so long. Life is tragedy but you made some beauty in it. We'll catch up in the next life.