My mom at her desk when we use to work at Union Theological Seminary library in 2003 (which is now formally part of Columbia University together) though she obviously had the bigger job and I used to catalog by hand old sermon pamphlets, handwritten cataloging. A nice time in a difficult moment in our lives. I always regret not taking more pictures of the place. That's a big part of being a photographer the regrets of the moments you didn't collect and/or better images of the fragments you did. That's probably much different now for many with the age of smart phones.

Union Theological Seminary library

 

  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.