Everybody has their own story about why and how they do what they do as a photographer. This is mine.

A few years ago I began turning away from traditional photography. I realized I was defined by the quality of my equipment. Sharp focus, rule of thirds, perfect exposures and all the other self-imposed rules I placed on myself to appease the gods of photography became monotonous and boring. As a documentary photographer I adhered to these rules for my entire career. Different subjects, but always the same rules.

I love photography, but when I retired I switched gears and embraced a more artistic look for my photography. My equipment became less and less important to me. I began seeing creative and unique photographs coming from cheap cameras with cheap lenses. Blurred images, poor exposure and odd compositions became a new and interesting look to me. Don't get me wrong, I am aware that just being blurry, poorly exposed and oddly composed does not make a good photograph. You still need to know how to use it and I found that some people were very good at bringing those "poor quality" elements together in very interesting ways.

My current style began evolving after I started layering multiple images together into a single photograph. I still use Photoshop CS3 and layer my photographs by multiplying or overlaying each image. I have seen some incredibly good multiple exposures done in camera, but I wanted more control and a different effect. Print texture also became an important element in my photography and took on a whole new meaning when I began experimenting with the “photo encaustic” application of beeswax and damar resin over the surface of my mounted prints. I have included a close-up example of how the wax looks on a print in my image stream. Many of the photographs you see here are without wax, but this process opened up a whole new world for me and is currently the process I use for all my gallery work.

Every photograph you see in my stream is made up of two or more layered photographs that I have taken. None of the texture you see in my images, with or without wax, was created using Photoshop artistic filters (not that there is anything wrong with that…). The texture you see is from each layered photograph either multiplied, overlayed or a combination of the two. My photographic style is not for everyone and would not even be considered a true photograph by many, but again I am not a big fan of the rules anymore. Whether an image is made up of one photograph or a combination of several photographs the end result is a photograph. It's just a photograph I saw with my mind instead of my eye.