My name is Rick Westcott. I am a husband, a father, and an artist.

For my day job, I write computer programs for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center with a group of creative and talented people of which I am continually in awe. The rest of the time, I am in pursuit of beauty whether in my family, around good food surrounded by friends, reading a good book, or peering through a view-finder.

I shoot both analog and digital. I have a collection of antique cameras that I make sure do not collect too much dust. My camera of choice is a 1904 Seneca Chautauqua 4×5 but I am never without my Canon G10.

Art, to me, is about mystery—about the asking of questions rather than the giving of answers. I embrace ambiguity before certainty. Shadow, to me, is as important as light. I seek to ask what might be rather than declare what is—to search out the inner narrative of a subject and to hope, in the telling, that it connects with that of the viewer.

My approach to photography is to seek out subjects that suggest to me mystery and then, to spend enough time with those subjects that their subtle ambiguities begin to reveal themselves. I consider art to be the perfect blending of accident and intention and I find those works most compelling that evoke in the artist, as well as in the viewer, a response of surprise.

I believe in experimentation—in learning something new every day. I believe that beauty is transformative—that art is a powerful tool for social change, and I strive in my life, my work, and my art to introduce beauty and transformation into the lives of others.