2021 was as prolific for me as 2020 was sparse. Once the pandemic panic subsided and the COVID vaccines allowed us to start returning to life, I found myself shooting more than ever. I felt like my palette was full of materials and ideas to work with- fresh and and well rested and more eager to create than ever. It was immensely fun getting back to photographing, and I enjoyed being able to simply play in the studio with all of the different materials, colors, and exciting new layers I had been exploring in the last few years- and in my frenzied manic mode of shooting, began putting them together in new ways. By 2022, I found myself merging different bodies in completely different visual ways. I became very interested in the ethereal quality I could achieve in working with the plexiglass, and drifted further from the hard edges of the mirror shards to more delicate, transparent characteristics. Eventually the blending of bodies became seamless as I found more precision within the way figures could come together- how a shoulder could relate to a jaw, or how different lines within the body could echo one another. In some cases, one model's body could become a transparent veil for the other figure. I also discovered how expressive gestures could be elicited in completely unexpected ways, defined by the relationship of how one model's hand, arm, face, or whatever happened to interact with the other.   

Building the body out of shards of broken mirrors had made me very focused on shape again, seeing form more than the idea of a body. Throughout 2017 - 2018, I found myself fascinated by specific sections of the body, isolated from their function and independent from the rest of the figure. The images remind of the same focus that I had in the hot tub work from 1994-1996, but instead of soft, fluid, and graceful edges, these were sharp, hard edged, and blatantly bizarre and the addition of color gave distinct separation between forms. 

2019 was a particularly prolific year for shooting, and I was able to photograph on a very consistent basis. I found myself fueled by fascination for the deep, passionate red that had been prominent in my work throughout the last few years, and came back to focus on it further, determined to explore its powerful presence. The majority of images from this year incorporate this rich, beautiful, and complex color, and I still absolutely love it's effects- at times elegant, other times raw, and always intriguing. Broken shards still built the body up, and I continued incorporating the mannequins, but suddenly they seemed more organic while the human form started to feel more rigid, robotic, or stone-like. 

But the productivity of 2019 came to a screeching halt as the COVID pandemic reached new and frightening heights in 2020. Through all the creative blocks and life obligations that have come up throughout the years, I never spent as much time not shooting as in 2020 - the year of the COVID pandemic. Spending the bulk of the year in strict isolation, when I did finally return to photographing, it was only one model. We both masked up, maintained distance by staying on opposite sides of the mirror, and kept the shoots relatively short. Incorporating the ubiquitous face mask was a challenge, but also invited the integration of colored drapes and cloths as a graphic element.
 

Similar to the struggle I experienced 10 years prior, I found myself facing another creative block towards the end of 2007. This time, in addition to the motivational hurdles that come from a lack of inspiration, the world of photography had gone through changes that were impossible to ignore. Everything was quickly shifting to digital, and even just getting supplies to continue photographing black & white film was a challenge. I once again nearly gave up, and when I invested in my first digital camera, it was with no intention of using it to continue what I considered "My Work", until it led to yet another stunning discovery....COLOR...and more specifically, the transformative effect water has on the interpretation of color. It may sound funny, but after over 20 years of looking at bodies reflected and reformed through water, I never paid much attention to its impact on color. This new discovery for me revealed the significant shift to cooler tones seen underneath the surface, while hues above were much warmer.

It was only a matter of time before my fascination with working in color underwater led to experimenting with the same dynamics in the mirrors. It was not uncommon to be lighting each model with a different intensity of light, but now I wanted to play with varying the color of the light as well, using an assortment of gels and even incorporating colored backdrops and cloths. Eventually I wanted to see how far I could push the color palette boundaries, and soon found myself drawn to a rich, luscious red. To me, it conjured a full spectrum of expressions and was capable of being both attractive or repulsive - often at the same time. 

I see the figures in my work from 2012 - 2016 as archetypal embodiments of mythological narrative. They feel like  psychological dramas that we either identify with personally or recognize internally. Nearly all of the images throughout these years were created in the studio and working with the mirrors, often times merging the figures together in ways that illustrate a recognizable myth- as in the likeness of Oedipus in Untitled (#09-04-13-287)- or elicit a recognizable state of mind- as in the despair evoked in Untitled (#4-24-12-012). All of the images from this period are quite visceral, and as if tracing further and further back, become more raw, more primitive in essence as I continued this journey. Eventually, the merging of figures became less seamless and more hard edged, moving on to 2016 where the hard edged lines and shapes of the mirror shards become important aspects of piecing them together. The strange amalgamation of these beings got even weirder when I began experimenting with replacing one model with mannequins in various states of completeness - some missing arms, some missing heads, legs, etc. Sometimes, what is seen of the actual figure in an image is quite minimal - as in Untitled (# 06-08-16-429) 2016 - yet the fullness of the body and its gesture remains.

My journey into the water took me literally into the water, and eventually underneath it. I loved seeing the reflection on the surface from below, and the odd perspective lead to very unusual images, often redefining the forms in such a distinct way that they were nearly believable if not so odd. Between 1994 - 1996, the majority of my work was shot beneath the surface, a time that vastly improved my lung capacity while discovering another visual layer to work with. It was an exciting time, but in 1997 I felt like I had hit the wall. I continued to photograph even though I found nothing that inspired me, and feared the creative well had run dry. But the payoff of continuing to work through it led to a discovery that would keep me engaged for many years to come, and to learn the value of persisting when you feel you're at the end of the rope....(see Untitled #7146 for more)....  

From 2001 - 2004, I worked primarily in the studio with the mirrors. The process of piecing together forms and figures had become very exact- the way I could compose to visually line up graphic elements, the shape of mirror shards, the relationship of one form to another all became very important. Most of the figures in the images throughout these years are composite "beings", created from merging two or even more models together into one strange entity. They seem otherworldly, or supernatural, yet because their composition is so precise, they seem almost believable. There is an elegance, a grace to their gestures, which was the basis for where the creative path took me next...

After such intense looking and the arduous task of being so meticulous in visually aligning shapes and forms, my eyes needed a break. In 2005, I returned to photographing in the water, once again simplifying the body to the most minimal, graceful forms I could find. The mirrors had become so complex, with so many intricate layers, that I needed respite in the sheer beauty of the way water can reshape the body. This work resonates with the same lucid, ethereal quality that I had discovered much earlier in images like Untitled (#4442), 1992, only this time, I was determined to streamline the body into an even much slimmer, simpler form. How much of the body could I not reveal, or how little of it could I show, and still have it read as a body?

I have always been a very visual person. 

When I discovered working with photography, I loved it's capability to allow me to see graphically- to discover the simple beauty of lines and shapes, independent of whatever the subject may be. No matter how my work has evolved throughout the years, no matter how complex the seeing through visual layers of reflections, no matter how weird, dark, and/or psychological it gets, my primary focus is and has always been to make it work visually, and then trust the poetry or metaphor will follow. 

As a young, angsty photography student, I discovered the potential for illusions and distortions in photography to tell a higher truth, to be an expressive art form as opposed to a tool for documentation. These two approaches and my enthusiasm for the medium were, and still are, at the core of my passion, and set the stage for what would kick off a life's worth of work.... 

In the mid to late 1980's, I found myself drawn to the specular way water reflects light, and the potential it had for creating visually poetic layers. Many of these were photographed in streams and open puddles of water after a heavy rain before bringing myself to invest in a kiddie pool that I lined with black fabric to intensify and isolate the reflection. In those early years, I was limited by the time of year- cold winter months made it impossible to find models willing to submerge themselves in an outdoor, half frozen kiddie pool. Go figure. So I began experimenting indoors, shooting in a studio and working with scratched, broken, and shattered mirrors. Although the mirrors were harder edged and less fluid than photographing in the water, I was excited by the same potential to create new forms and illusions using reflections and visual layers.