Behind the Images

"They ask you how you write these songs, and it's a really hard question to answer, because you don't really know how you do it. And I think it's probably wrong, if you did know, to tell ya. You know? It's like, 'How'd you saw that woman in half?' Well I didn't realllllly. But this a different situation because this is a very real magic here, and you have to wait for it, and if you're lucky enough for it to happen it's kind of hard to explain. It's kind of like an orgasm I guess. You know, you don't know how you did that." - Tom Petty


So there was this one time...when I kinda sorta almost lost $15k in photo gear to the Atlantic Ocean, and this other time when my sister and I almost got mugged in Dublin.

These are just some of the exciting mishaps and adventures (OK, mostly mishaps) that I'm excited to share with you in a new section to my Web site - Behind the Images.

I debated this for a while. Should I, shouldn't I...well, yes won out. Why the hesitation in sharing snippets of my process and experiences? For that very reason - they're my experiences.

It has always been important to me that my images to stand on their own and to speak for themselves. That's one of the reasons I always encourage visitors to my site to view the image large, and the same reason 24x36 prints have more impact than 4x6s - it's about visual impact.

While my photos say one thing to me, they may speak to you in an entirely different way.

Vincent LaForet wrote on his blog last week about a meeting with James Nachtwey, in which, during a portfolio review, Nachtwey told a student, "I’m afraid that these pictures don’t tell me anything about who you are” - and dismissed the student. It is my sincere hope that by reading my Behind The Image snippets you can learn a little about who I am.

Take the time, for example that I got in a fight with the Atlantic Ocean in December, or that other time I climbed a girder on the Brooklyn Bridge...

Special thanks to Velvet for editing my comments. :-)