4.25"x5.5" Collodion Wet-Plate on Glass and Aluminum, 8"x10" Silver-Gelatin prints, Digital Prints
MOMENTO is a collection of human experiences and the technological dreams triggered by our cameras. The cameras capture our experience in mere fractions of seconds, but the cameras themselves endure to reflect the technology and aspirations of their eras. The memories we connect to the cameras are significant, sentimental and cherished.
STATEMENT I believe art should ask questions, not provide answers. My goal is to take the familiar and make it unfamiliar; to ask a question and begin a dialogue with the viewer. W.H. Auden said: ”Knowledge may have its purposes, but guessing is always more fun than knowing.” I don’t capture what is there, but …
Digital prints of the Camera Obscura images of New York City
Together Charles Schwartz and Bill Westheimer explored the city of New York on the upper east side of Manhattan using a Camera Obscura. These pictures reveal the city through the unique viewpoint of the camera obscura and record the images digitally. The Camera Obscura's location is fixed, yet it provides an ever changing view of the city's activities, architecture and landscape. The images use the pre-photographic camera obscura technology combined with post-photographic digital capture to create a timeless view of New York. The digital camera instantly captures the ephemeral projections in a clear crisp reality that transports the viewer into other worlds.
What we’ve been doing…. Lisa and I presented our work for the Peters Valley Artist Talk Series on May 5th, 2021. I love to talk about my art but talking about myself is excruciating. It was a wonderful opportunity to explain how my various projects relate to each other and fit into the context of …
The Camera Obscura that Charles Schwartz and I used for our New York Camera Obscura project was built on his roof overlooking New York City’s Central Park was built by George Keene, a brilliant man who was a scientist, engineer, craftsman and man of all ages. The Camera Obscura was beautifully designed, engineered, and built …
Charles Schwartz On January 24, 2019 my dear friend Charles Schwartz died. He had been sick and incapacitated for years, so his death was bittersweet. He was released from a personal hell being imprisoned in his crumpled body. May 21st, 2019 a memorial was held at the Explorers Club in midtown Manhattan where Charles had …
Being the naive person that I am, I am always amazed when I encounter someone who is dishonest. I know, in today’s political world it seems like there is an epidemic of dishonesty and hypocrisy, but in the art world I innocently expect the best from everyone I deal with. And most of the time …
I was asked to do a couple of hand portraits to raise money for a worthy cause: Write on Sports – an organization that teaches inner city kids to write by writing news articles about sports. Back in 2005 I photographed about 100 people for my MANUAL Project. But I hadn’t done any “hand portraits” …
When I read the shocking news this week that drone maker DJI was buying Hasselblad the venerable camera maker it brought back memories. Not just my unpleasant memories of owning a Hasselblad 500ELM and a few lenses. I loved the image quality but I detested how complex it was to use the camera and how …
The photos for this post should be shot through a hazy filter since the story sounds impossible in light of the current state of the stock photography market and the memories are unclear. I was thinking back to when I used to make a decent income from stock photography. Yeah, like Getty Images… but different, …
It is a cliché but true… “If you can remember the Sixties you weren’t there.” I can’t remember much of that era but I was there. When I was in high school and before I was old enough to drive (16 was the legal driving age in Ohio back then) Johnathan Crawford, one of my …
When I was little we used to “play war” which meant the neighborhood kids would roam the neighborhood with fake guns and hide behind bushes and sheds to surprise ambush their friends shouting “Bombs away!” or “Bang!” or “Boom: you’re dead!” That was the 1950’s and 60’s when the true war fears had caused the …
Assignment: get a bunch of drugs and make a picture. Well, not exactly like you are thinking. One of my favorite clients, Nancy Etheredge at E.P. Dutton Publishing hired me to do a cover photogram for a hard bound book “Intoxication – Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradise” by Ronald K. Siegel, Ph D. Sounded …