I chose to major in Photography and Interdisciplinary Studies for my Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at York University, Toronto.
This picture was my first image as a photographer shot on location in a studio on Dundas Street West (1992).
Model - my best friend during my undergraduate degree, Amy Burrows.
Still life is a mainstay or cornerstone of artwork and featured as my focus after developing principles.
Series with still life (1993).
As I came to grips with film processing and the darkroom, my interest in the American visual artist, Man Ray, and the technique of producing photograms grew.
Play and Reels (1992).
I worked as a photojournalist taking pictures for commercial purposes at concerts as part of an independent press publication called Hard Plains Drifter from 1992 until 1993. The images here are of the group Stereolab which I made from multiple negatives to form composite silver prints in the darkroom.
The Canadian photographer, Jack Dale, was my professor throughout my studies of photography. He specialised in a technique often referred to as a historic process using gum-bichromate or non-silver printing.
The images here are the result of mixing watercolour pigments in an elaborate process involving several exposures of the large scale negative which was coated in silver nitrate. I shot the pictures in 1993, but created the prints in 1994.
I transitioned to digital photography very smoothly - my gaze had always focused on remaining faithful to the medium itself - revealing the mechanical elements yet still searching for beauty, nature or play.
I use digital effects in a very limited sense still relying on formal principles of in-camera composition and knowledge of light, tone and shadow but it helps reduce contact with chemicals and ease certain desirable results.
See no evil, Ripples, Flowers through a glass (1993).
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