Artist Statement

I love the outdoors. There I find exhilaration, comfort and serenity. I take photographs of nature and wilderness that try to show its fragility, its threatened places, and its quiet resilience—how it can restore itself and, in turn, console us. I’m interested in nature,  because I grew up in Maine appreciating the outdoors, visiting State and National Parks summers with my family, Together with my father I would often fly into a remote pond where we would fish or hunt as a guest of a trapper who lived in the Hundred-Mile Wilderness.

In making the work, I was influenced by photographers who work in a similar style and whose interest in outdoor landscapes reverberates with me strongly. Ansel Adams became celebrated for his landscape photos of the National Parks. Eliot Porter used the words of Henry David Thoreau in a book “In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World” to highlight in photos the places Thoreau visited while living at Walden Pond. I follow Sean Tuck, Ian Plant, Rick Berk, Mark Denney, Michael Shainblum, and Dave Morrow.

 Like Caspar David Friedrich, a German Romantic painter, I seek landscapes where the outer world reflects an inner experience of wonder and belonging. I’m inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer who writes in “Braiding Sweetgrass” asking us to practice gratitude, reciprocity and care for the Earth. I embrace Margaret Renkl’s writing in “The Comfort of Crows” where our well-being is inseparable from the flourishing of other living beings.

When I create works such as these,  I practice the art of stillness: quieting myself to wait for a true connection. In that silence, listening closely, I often find myself not just observing, but feeling part of the world around me. I hope these images do more than show you a view; may they help you sense more deeply the world we live in and by so doing awaken a deeper belonging in this special place we call Maine.