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Born in Chattanooga, TN, I have grown up in Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Germany, the Philippines, and other places. I don't consider anywhere home, except where I am right now, but that too, is temporary. I'm still growing up, by the way.

I've been making for as long as I can remember, though I came to making photographs in high school, through Mr. Jacobson's class (1992/1993), and lots and lots of self-directed reading: books about the Vietnam War (I was born the year Saigon fell), then, further along in life, specific photographic monographs or anthologies by or about artists ranging from Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, all those Secessionists, to Duane Michals, Herb Ritts, Minor White, then Imogen Cunningham, Harry Callahan, Eliot Porter, Wolfgang Tillmans, Nobuyoshi Araki, Nan Goldin, William Eggleston, Bruce Davidson, Sandy Skoglund, and the list could go on for days. I looked voraciously!

And, I worked. As you can see below, I was a reporter for a few newspapers, but mostly I explored on my own, with various 35 mm film cameras first, then, starting in 2005, with digital cameras of a couple makes and models. I'd give myself assignments (photographing 24 hours in a city, photographing buildings at night, photographing necks, photographing trees at night) and grow into my particular vision(s) through experience.

Jacobson taught us darkroom technique, but it wasn't until Rick Dingus' grad photography classes in 2004/2005, that I got back into the darkroom, printing, and I even learned to print color then. Also around that time (2005), I began to collaborate with a friend, Gail Folkins, who was working on a book about dance halls in Texas (some of those images are in the Galleries).

In 2007, after reading Parr's and Badger's A History of the Photobook Vol I and II, I began to think even more about the purposes, the challenges, the benefits and joys of photobook making, how that can affect photo meaning making. So, in 2007, I designed at least six photobooks on varying subjects (I admire Ed Ruscha's explorations/games/creations), playing with design/layout/text using repetition/juxtaposition/space/position/sequencing to create meanings.

Since then, I've continued exploring, seeing new ways, things new to me. I hope to always remain curious, visually, and I photograph as one means to understand.

Ph.D. - Texas Tech University, 2006

English, Emphasis in Prose Poetry

M.A. - The University of Southern Mississippi, 2002
English, Emphasis in Poetry
B.A. - The University of Southern Mississippi, 2001
English

 

About

Bio
Education
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Work​
experience​
Foto
Statement

Minor White and others in their interviews in Dialogue with Photography, talk about how some photographers concern themselves with realizing the truth in a moment and using the camera to record that, to present that. Perpendicular to that, they assert, some photographers aim to make truths through their images, by whatever means necessary. Their concern lies less with presenting what's "really" there and more with using what's there to present the artist's perceptions about what's in the world, physically, emotionally, spiritually.

I'm definitely the second type of photographer.  Yes, photographing makes me notice, but it also gives me a means of using light and shadow, color, form, all of those elements of design, but produced via the mechanisms of the camera (and the print, the book) to figure out what I want to say and to say it.  There's nothing objective about anyone photographing; it's impossible! Because people, makers, remain human.

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