Thoughts about photographing water

Beneath the transparent border between water and air, I am confronted with the daily life of the water, including delicate plant life, hidden habitats and crude human incursions in the form of trash and pollution. I observe the water as a parallel system to ours, with cycles and relationships that are intricate and fascinating, inextricably intertwined with ours and laden with implications for our future. Living in West Texas, where the average spring humidity is under 30% and irrigation is standard procedure, I am acutely aware of the value of water. The waters I am photographing include: lakes in East Texas with water so abundant that a major corporation bottles their water for commercial sales, playa lakes in West Texas where the neighborhood runoff fills the lakes, the Gulf of Mexico (a major petrochemical center) and central Texas, with clear spring fed rivers. In each body of water, the past and the future can be understood through the presence (or absence) of plant life, particulates, and refuse. Images can reveal juxtapositions between land structures (trees and plants, buildings, houses) and water life which range from bucolic to disturbing. These photographs provide a close and unexpected portrait of the most important natural resource in our lives.

General Technical Information on each body of work:

Required Reading layers underwater photographs with images of books of religion, science, history. The water weaves through and around the text, sometimes obscuring or revealing. They are made using the same techniques as Surface Tension, with the added collaged elements.

Surface Tension's photographs are made in waters in Texas including Lubbock playa lakes, Junction's Llano River, Aquarina Springs in San Marcos, Galveston, Holly Lake in East Texas. They are made digitally with a Nikon D800 and an Ikelite underwater housing. The prints are archival inkjet on William Turner paper, printed 38x30 and 32x26 inches.

On The Brink is a series of pinhole photographs made with a 120 pinhole camera focusing on the ambiguous border between land and water and what is left behind by two sets of inhabitants. The prints are made digitally and coated with tinted encaustic. Each image is 8x8 inches.

Difficult Nature photographs were made with a Mamiya C220 camera, scanned and digitally colored. The images are printed 24x24 inches, archival inkjet. 

Palimpsest Portraits are 40x30 gelatin silver prints from 8x10 negatives.

At the Edge of Night is a series of gelatin silver prints of the woods in the dark of night.