The idea of an artist statement has always seemed a bit self indulgent and in some cases self limiting. However after spending more time with some professional photographers and artists as well as visiting a number of their web sites, I am beginning to at least recognize their usefulness in communicating to the casual viewers (and potential patrons) of your work where YOU are coming from and who YOU are. After all, the web is a huge place and unlike friends and colleagues in the real world, the bio or artist statement is all netizens or people who stumble across your work will know about you as a person and photographer. If you use any web search engine, you can find a lot of good tips about writing your statement – some contradictory about what to include or exclude.  Almost all of them agree that it should be about you and not your photography or technique. They are dynamic and should change or be updated as often as you and your interests change and evolve. In the end you’ll have to decide what to share and how to share it.

SOoo – here goes – my nascent photographer bio/artist statement:

I am an emerging photographer with a wide range of photographic and artistic interests and motivations. My inspirations, like me, are eclectic and unpredictable.

I vaguely remember the very first camera I was given. I was young – I think in first grade in 1969. It was a hand-me-down Kodak Brownie and the first pictures I took with it were at a Bush Gardens theme park in Houston. While sturdily constructed, Bakelite doesn’t hold up too well in the hands of a 6 year-old boy. As a young kid in elementary and middle school, the annual gift subscriptions from my Aunt to National Geographic also fanned an interest in learning and a curiosity about the world through the stories told by the images that came to me in the mail each month.  

My next camera, as a teen in the late 70’s, was a Polaroid SX-70. I got it as a Christmas present that I begged for as the only present I wanted or needed. I remember it turned out to be a costly camera to take photos with for someone still on a tight allowance and after a while it lost its appeal. A decade passed and I didn’t take up photography again until 1989 when I started traveling for my work. I had an Olympus AZ-330 that I really loved and I took many rolls of film with that camera. I had a real job then and could afford the film and processing. I adopted digital in 2002 with a Minolta Dimage 7 and in 2009 I  invested in a Canon digital SLR system. That’s when I rediscovered a really obsessive way to satisfy several passions at once.

Whether through photojournalism, documentary photography, travelogue, portraiture or still life - photography as an art and a physical science allows me to indulge in and express my many interests. You see, I work in a very logical, methodical, left brain environment and I really enjoy it for the most part. I love science, technology, gadgets, the theoretical and the abstract. I have a voracious appetite and curiosity for learning of all types. I love the challenge of mastering new concepts and disciplines. I love travel, art, music, social interaction and people watching as  “sport”. I love controversy, heated debate, and activism. For me, photography is a dynamic synthesis of all the things I love. It provides a laboratory for learning and experimentation while at the same time a medium for me to exercise my right brain through creative expression - the ability to capture a moment, to tell a story, to teach, to entertain, and maybe affect a change.