Alice On The Shore

Her name is Alice. I don't draw very often but when I do I prefer to use charcoal. It gives a drawing much more depth and feeling in my opinion. Also I like the way I can manipulate the shading just by moving the charcoal around on the paper with my finger. I drew this about the time I was playing the game Silent Hill a whole bunch and I felt like drawing something which could have very easily been found in that game.

Cochineal (Dactylopius coccus)

This here is absolutely one of my all time favorite images. I was living across the street from some houses that had been condemned and one afternoon I saw this. What you see here is actually the top of an upside down cross. I found this next to an empty pool that some kids had been skating and biking in. I took several frames of the scene but this one point of view seemed to work the best. I printed this on a sheet of 11X14 FB paper and was playing around with toning at the time. So I rounded up a bunch of cochineal and made a rich magenta dye. I literally made a color out a bug. I still get a kick out of that.

Dead Wood

This is the last of three images that I felt worked well together. The first one is the ride at the state fair. I thought it fitting that on this headstone is the name Wood. I think I find that ironic because a tree isn't wood unless its dead. So I saw a juxtaposition there and that is one thing I look for when I shoot.

Danger

This is part of a series that I shot. I didn't plan on putting the images together but they fit and I liked them together. One of the commonalities between them is that I toned all of them with sepia and that I printed them on Oriental FB 11X14" paper. I took this standing on a RR bridge next to one of the very few streets in PHX that runs diagonally.

Shades Of Earth

This is acrylic on canvas and at the time I was in the mood to make earth tones. I think that I intended to paint some hills but it turned out looking more like a lava flow or something like that. I just put some paint out there and eventually got it to where I liked it. This piece is pretty small though at 6X12".

Untitled #A

This is acrylic paint on canvas. And all I was really doing was playing with color and a palette knife. At some point I decided that I had the right balance of colors and stopped adding paint. I know this isn't what I wanted to paint when I started but I really liked what I had when I finished. This piece is 11X14". If you have any ideas for a title I welcome the input.

ATM

I took my camera to the state fair one night a while back and at the time I was playing around with extended exposures. I believe this was a 15 second exposure. I have been told many times that this resembles an oil well and although they are correct to a degree I was just taking a picture of pretty moving lights at night.

Proud Baby

This cute little baby is one of my favorite images because it was a little cherub doll that I found somewhere which I ended up using in a series of images. So I was playing around one afternoon and I put a flashlight behind the head to try to make the eyes glow. I felt that it wasn't quite enough though so I saw this dead bug and it struck me as the perfect prop. Anyhow it looked to me almost like the baby was looking up and saying, 'Aren't you proud of me Mommy?'

Sad Pina Coloda

I was walking down the street one day and I looked down and noticed this sad Pina Colada. I say it was sad because these are all the mixings for a fresh Pina Colada and it had fallen from somebodies vehicle.

Giant Ocotillo

These two images were taken of the absolute biggest ocotillo I have ever seen and I took them from the same spot. The top one I was looking up and I think the upper reaches of it were 45-50 feet tall. The lower image was at about eye level, so roughly 5'8" off the ground since I am 5'11", and these bases must have had a 10-12" diameter. I took these at Joshua Tree National Park on one of the worst mornings I have had in a very long time.

Monk Fish

This Monk Fish is one of the very first photographs I ever took. I found it at the Pike Place Public Market in Seattle. I used to live up there and for a while I did some work with a cool cat named Hotte. He is a commercial photographer and for my first job he paid me with a camera. I think that this photo was on my first roll of film that I processed myself. I printed this on RC paper and then because I was playing around I solarized it.

Under The Waves

I called this 'Under The Waves' and it is acrylic on balsa wood. I actually intended to paint this in portrait layout, but it didn't want to be that way. To be honest this was a project that I started from the outside in. I had the frame and mat and I made something that would fit in it. Just the other day I gave this one to a good friend of mine. I do hope that he enjoys it.

Rare Cloudy Day

I was sitting at a bus stop one day and the clouds looked so spectacular I framed this up and took it. I almost always use a Canon A1 or AE1 and shoot using B&W film. I really like the way a 35mm feels in my hands and Canons are the perfect camera in my opinion. And although digital makes things somewhat easier to do certain things it lacks the tactile nature of the darkroom. This was printed as a 5X7 on FB paper.

Starting Point

So once upon a time this is what my life used to be about, 'Guns', Money, & Drug$'. I took this at about the time I began to realize this lifestyle would only land me in jail or dead. It is a B&W 35mm photo printed on RC paper and I added the color with Sharpie markers'. Those of my friends who know me are aware that I didn't quite learn my lesson then, but I know my path now.