Daniel Boorstin, a historian and twelfth librarian of the United States Congress, published in 1962 – The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. I read the book in the late 1980s while in college. Boorstin observed the evolution of politics and news reporting where politicians create events for media to cover and thus amplify their narrative. I have reflected on this book for most of my career, sometimes cynically looking at some events that really weren’t newsworthy and other
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The Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild (RBWG) reached out to me and asked me to participate in their Art in the AM program. As they describe it, “it is a monthly performance featuring visual artists, RBWG writers, and songs by musician Stuart Vining.” For their March meeting, I selected a diptych of abstract images I made in 2015 of a crumpled-up piece of metal I rescued from the demolition of the 1965 Cullen Bridge (Indian River Inlet) located along the coast of Delaware. These
…I wrote about the topic of breaking the rules previously in this blog, but I recently had the opportunity to delve into it deeper. There are very few conversations that I remember or stand out from decades ago. There is one that has left an indelible mark and I still can’t shake it from my memory. The year is fuzzy, but I think it was 1990 or 1991. I was a student and assisting a professor, who was teaching a professional
…I have two pieces included in the 5th Annual Rehoboth Art League’s Regional Juried Photography Exhibition. Both images are a departure from work I have been creating over the last couple of years and I am thrilled to have this work included in this show.
YMCA Locker Room was created at a YMCA in western Massachusetts. I spent many hours using their facilities and often found myself surprised at the locker room talk … some of which was quite graphic and
…I am starting a project to photograph people who live with chronic pain, give them a voice, and build awareness of the challenges and stigmatization that often impacts quality of life. I am initially looking for 10 participants on the Delmarva Peninsula. Each participant will be interviewed to capture their experiences, lessons learned and their recommendations. I will make images of participants in their environment, using their own words and imagery, and illustrate the complexity of living with pain
…I have stayed in contact with a few of my favorite professors at the Rochester Institute of Technology from 30 years ago (shhh … yes … it was that many years). One of them is Willie Osterman, who teaches his students more about life than about photography (although he certainly teaches that extremely well). Willie is the Director of the Fine Art Photography Program at RIT. In 2018, he led a one-day workshop at Center for Photographic Art in Carmel
…I was giving a talk about fine art photography awhile back and one of the attendees thanked me for submitting my Fall Maple Leaf image to the Ward Museum’s 2017 Art in Nature Photography Competition. To my great surprise, the picture took the grand champion award. The attendee explained that my image was very different from the other entries and by winning the award, I opened the door to more experimentation and artistic expression.
I thought about that discussion when
…You are at a restaurant and someone takes out their phone and starts taking pictures. It’s annoying, right? That person … that’s me … but let me explain. It’s probably part attention deficits, but mostly just an innate curiosity in exploring the visual world. I have often told friends that I literally can’t
…I started taking iPhone pictures in 2008 which ultimately led to a rewarding creative journey over the past decade. In 2013, I created a small book, Found, to summarize my experience, learn from my experiments, and share the zaniness and joy of creating images with my iPhone. Little did I understand at the time, but I finished the book at the same time my body was undergoing significant physical change and a forthcoming period of darkness and pain. During that time,
…30 years later and I still remember an exchange I had with a student in a professional workshop at the Rochester Institute of Technology focused on digital photography. The student worked at a national trade magazine and I remember telling her that she needed to play with the tools to learn. Those were the days of Adobe Photoshop Version 1 and we were all experimenting and pushing all the tools to their limits. The student shot me a look
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