Paper Skies/Moving Pictures

The dual series "Paper Skies/Moving Pictures" is focused on atmospheric light and color, putting the most ubiquitous of subjects -- the sky -- into unconventional contexts to create illusions that confront expectations. Produced using simple processes relying on traditional camera techniques, the work explores the role traditional photography can still play in creating new visions of common subjects, while challenging viewers' perception of color and three-dimensional space. 

All images in Paper Skies/Moving Pictures are created by re-photographing a folded and/or cut print of a sky image (grey clouds, blue sky or sunset close-up) in front of actual sky. (There is no post-production manipulation.) In Paper Skies, the juxtaposition of the print against the actual sky creates an abstract image that emphasizes the ambiguity between the real and the reproduced, and allows the original printed photograph to be seen in a new context as a three-dimensional geometric form. The paper on which the original image is printed transcends its role as simply a substrate for photographic imagery and becomes an active ingredient whose edges, texture and shape play a key role in the final image. 

Moving Pictures also looks at the photograph as object, but this time as an object in motion interacting with its environment over time and, in the process, literally blurring the line between what is real and what is reproduced. The images are created by quickly moving a folded and/or cut printed sky image while it is being re-photographed outside. The half-second exposure time generates amalgams in which the printed sky and the actual sky are merged, blending colors and shadows and revealing a synthesis that cannot be seen with the naked eye. De-emphasizing the materiality of the original printed image by using motion to blur edges and textures also focuses greater attention on color and the quality of light.