Introduction
The trees in these photographs are from places that carry many memories for me, near where I live in the Santa Cruz mountains, and near where I grew up in Connecticut. Just as memories are built up over time, forming complex webs of repetition and reinterpretation, the photographs in this series are built up from multiple exposures. Since my digital Hasselblad camera does not have the built-in ability to capture multiple exposures, I had to create my own method. Covering the lens, I leave the shutter open for a few minutes, periodically making exposures by uncovering the lens and moving the camera between exposures. Since I’m never sure quite what the result will be, the process is full of surprises and serendipity, just like the process of forming and finding memories.
The images themselves are varied, just like our memories. Some are light and ethereal, while others are darker, even brooding. Some are clearly recognizable as trees, while others are more abstract, further removed from the original by all the built-up layers. Overall, I seek a contemplative and mysterious feeling in these images, as if from a secret, misty forest that lies partway between this world and another. The simple geometric compositions contrast with the endless complexity of the branches receding into the distance. Various influences for this series include looping music by Steve Reich and Zoe Keating, fractal imagery, and works by Richard Diebenkorn, Cy Twombly, and Jackson Pollack.
The images are captured using a digital medium-format Hasselblad camera, and printed at 40” x 40” and 20” x 20” as archival pigment prints. I use the highly-textured Hahnemuehle “William Turner” paper and float the prints in the frames, creating end results that resemble drawings, blurring the line between our external and internal realities, between this world and the world of our memories.