WeIcome to my first newsletter! If you like what you see please subscribe. I am sending the first issue to contacts and if you wish to receive further issues, every six weeks or so, you will need to subscribe. I am a photographer who grew up on the east coast but has lived and worked on the west coast for the past 15 years. I use both digital and large format film to capture the landscape.

I approach post processing in digital the same as I do in the darkroom, dodging, burning, contrast adjustments and sharpening. I do not manipulate much beyond that and most images are presented full frame without cropping. I do not consider an image finished until the print is produced. All photographs are available for purchase and prints larger than 8X12 are limited to editions of 10.

My work is very much influenced by the new topographic movement in that I am most interested the altered landscape. Some might find this banal but I like to find the beauty in the banal. To present the ordinary in a new way. Many of my photographs are taken on various roadtrips throught the west. I generally compose through the windshield as I drive the less frequented byways. I work in series rather than single images to describe a locale in pictures rather than words.

The American west evokes in me a sense of adventure and wonder that has not diminished over the years. The West is such a part of the American myth that travelling there one has a sense of history that still is not past. The landscape is viewed by me with the ideas of possibilities, that there is more out there to be discovered. My mind seems to expand with the horizon. Perhaps my having grown up in the crowded Northeast, the big sky of the west is still fresh and somewhat exotic.

Since moving to Southern Oregon from the California bay area two years ago I find that many of my images here concern agriculture at various scales. There is so much space in the west that everything appears larger than life, the ranches, grain elevators the endless grain fields of Eastern Washington. Paradoxically as the scale of agriculture increases the number of workers decreases. And the surrounding towns reflect this in the decay of the main streets and the dwindling populations.

In this first blog I am presenting a project called Dry in which I am documenting the extreme drought afflicting Southern Oregon and Northern California with a particular emphasis on the Klamath River Basin. The balance of agriculture verses wildlife verses Native American need for water is critical here. The Basin appears to be transitioning to a much more arid region with devastating consequences to the economy and agriculture. A state of permanent drought was announced this year which brings the threat of more wildfires and the need to adjust to a new reality. The Klamath River Basin is an example of the consequences of global warming happening worldwide which affects the marginal regions regions first.

The first two images in this blog were selected for The Left Coast Annual exhibition opening April 8th at Sanchez Art Center http://www.sanchezartcenter.org in Pacifica and running until May 15. If you are in the neighborhood stop in for the opening 7 to 9pm Friday April 8th! There are also three images from the Klamath Basin series on view at the Rouge Gallery Art Center https://rougegallery.org in Medford, Oregon.