I have been a student of photography for most of my life. I once read something Sheila Metzner said that set me on my path. "Everything I do is a study. If I use a rose, I want it to be the essential rose." That was interesting; the idea of finding the purest, innermost quality of a thing. I studied Arbus portraits, street scenes of Cartier-Bresson and the works of Irving Penn. They revealed secret worlds beneath the surface that were fascinating. They seemed to express fragile and powerful; fleeting and enduring. These dichotomies, and the duality of life they represent, are powerful examples of the "essential". This is what I aspire to in my work.

While traveling, my eye is constantly active and I don't think too much about technique. Photography for me is often just a response to color, light and graphic potential. I love to wander, feeling the thrill of the hunt; that my shot is there, somewhere, in the kaleidoscope of color and movement. 

When working with nature, portraits or a still-life, I spend time trying different things. I wait for changes in light or movement until the subject reveals something new. Underneath every subject, whether animate or not, runs a current of history and emotion. I want to tap into that; bring it to the surface. Sometimes the subject is abstracted; reduced to light, shadow, form or color. The context is missing but the image can be stronger without it, forming a challenge to our sensibilities, to our need to make sense of the world. I seem to strive to communicate a sense of balance and stark simplicity in my photographs. The "essential" often remains elusive, but what keep's me hooked is that I never know when or how it will surface.