Clematis in my garden

Tripping the light fantastic

Ansel Adams railed against having to describe his photography--he felt that the photographs spoke for themselves. I have a similar reticence, mostly because I've only recently transitioned to abstract photography.  

When I peruse my entire collection of several thousand photos, the bulk of them before 2021 were what could best described as 'calendar' photographs--flowers, family holidays, buildings, seasonal landscapes--photos that served at least two purposes: one, to record and remember family events, places I've visited, gardens I've visited. And another, to share on websites, to enter into photographic exhibitions. As my cameras and smartphones improved their lenses and allowed more powerful digital processing, these photos have improved in both quality and composition. And of course I still take these photos, but I started to see how much less any of them stood out from anyone else's photos in the clubs I exhibited in. But they did make good family calendars.

A turning point occurred when, having been turned down by more art competitions than I care to divulge,  I attended an exhibition at one of my favorite galleries, the Sohn Gallery in Lenox, Mass in 2021. An exhibition by a British artist Valda Bailey featured several of her abstract works, which I assumed were paintings, but they weren't--they were photographs. Covid interfered and I had to wait a year, but I took a workshop with both Valda and her colleague Doug Chinnery in October 2022 in the Sohn Gallery. 

This workshop started me on a journey that continues today (Valda and Doug created a subscription website that I joined, in which all the workshops they've led, across the world, are combined into an ongoing online community called FYV). Two outcomes from the workshop and the ongoing FYV community include a much better knowledge of cameras that can combine images as you take them, along with becoming much more fluent in Lightroom and Photoshop. But most of all, it transformed my photography from calendar to abstract--in composition not merely technique.

While nature and everyday life remain largely the focus of my photography, what I'm striving for are works that tell a story, show movement, delve into the heart of the subject, resonate with the viewer and encourage them to interpret my abstract photography in their own way. And as much as possible,  I try to ground my abstracts in reality. For example, "Tripping the Light Fantastic" is based on garlic scapes, "City on the Hill" is based on MASS MoCA walls.

Swept along by the crowd

Dickens's City on the Hill

Llanwenog, Wales: view from the house where I was born

York Minster