Echoes of Memory, Remnants of Dreams
1999–2002

These works are intended to evoke the particular connotation of an experience which is familiar yet distant in the mind of the viewer. Each image is captured with a hand-built camera and lens, which explains the imperfect pictorial qualities inherent in the body of photographs. While working on this project I wanted to create a timeless feeling and sense of nostalgia without becoming too overt in period reference or shtick. Subject matter therefore became quite varied as I made use of what was put before the lens, not seeking out or specifically authoring scenes. I have always preferred to make images in the manner of Harry Callahan who preached a credo of simply photographing the moments of one’s life, and by living a grand existence subsequently creating beautiful images. The memory themed artifice of my photographs is vested in the formal structure of the images, where softness of focus and shallow depth of field are used to create a dreamlike landscape upon which some information is lost and other information, accentuated. Just as in an actual memory, the viewer unknowingly attempts to fill the holes of missing data, bringing the subject closer to a place where they can respond to the image. It may be a bit cliche to state that the viewer is the one who completes the content, but this notion is utilized to an extent. In actuality, the mental image and its related existence to the photographs is a more directed context. Regarding this notion, as I wander the world and capture images, I ponder what it is that attracts me to a scene, what is it that I will, without choice, take away from the experience and what will be left behind. Basically, I question the selectivity of the human mind in the recording of witnessed events. “Echoes of Memory, Remnants of Dreams” works to deny the documentary impulse and embrace a scene not as it exists at the moment, but how it may look one day in memory.