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Street Vendor at Night |
Shiva |
Voudou Princess |
Dark Places #1 |
Ball and Bicycle |
Dark Places #2 |
Dinner in the Dark |
Manuela Guards
a Dark Place |
Nuns Leaving an Alley |
Praxis/Anchorage |
Sewing Machine |
Treadle |
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For as long as
I can
remember,
I have seen apparitions
in the dark.
As a child, I would look up at
trees and buildings, and they would be ogres and demons. I would look again and they would
be trees and buildings. A few minutes later, they might be fantastic creatures again.
Looking into darkened rooms, under cabinets, in the
corner, has the same effect. People, if they are there, take on an odd aspect, moving in
and out of other worlds. Objects become people, animals, totems of higher significance.
Perhaps the best example in the photographs here of this is the street vendor. I had seen
her during the day, and she looked like many of the other street vendors, an Indian woman
carrying a lot of bright objects. Sitting in an open-air restaurant at night with my
camera, I suddenly saw her coming through the streetlights, her face fixed in a wild leer
and her objects thrust out front, and she was now a living gargoyle.
It was almost by accident that I began to photograph the
images that passed by quickly. I was in Mallorca, walking down a narrow street away from
the crowds, shops and beaches. Looking into a slightly opened door, I saw a room that had
only a few chairs, an old tile floor, and a religious painting. There was a sensation of
spirits in the room. I quickly took a photograph, and when I printed it a month later, it
became the start of my "Dark Places" series.
I often photograph in places that have a sense of
spiritual history—Spain, with its gothic Catholic past, and Mexico, with its collision
of Spanish Catholicism and Indian shamanism, have been my favorite locations. However,
these locations aren't essential to my work, and I will continue to find images wherever I
may be.
I have always seen the photograph as a transmutation
rather than a literal truth. Once one reduces the dimensionality, removes the color,
reduces the scan and scope of human vision, there is no literal truth. Photographs can
explore beyond what something is, to what it means, or how it feels, because it has no need
to be what is.
Looking on the web at photographer Jan Faul's depiction of a Nevada atomic test
site, I was struck by the unbearable silence in the photographs, and reading his words
about the site, read about the silence. The photographs' strongest statement was what was
not in the photographs, not what was in them. This is the transmutation that photographs
can accomplish and is what I strive for in my photographs.
I draw much of my inspiration from words and music. Some
writers develop powerful imagery that stays with me and helps when I photograph, writers
such as Cormac McCarthy, Paul Auster, Paul Bowles. I listen to devotional music,
particularly from North Africa and India.
The one artist that I feel as an influence is Manuel
Alvarez Bravo. Although I would never compare my photographs to his beautiful work, he
works in a realm that explores the hidden. He is often cast as a photographer and
documentarian of Mexican culture, but this is not adequate as his art works at a much
deeper level.
I photograph with simple tools. All of these photographs
were taken with fixed lens cameras, which I find useful in the low-light areas I like to
photograph because of their size and weight. Often the camera is handheld at very slow
speeds, allowing the apparitions to take place. Occasionally I use a tiny flash unit to
"root" some of the motion, but usually I just use whatever light is available.
Film choice is equally simple—I use XP2 in 35mm and Tri-X in medium format. These are
the tools I have found, after much experimentation, give me the look I want right now. I
could probably use anything, as long as I continue to have sight.
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