the photographer
I am a native of Ohio, studied philosophy at university in Indiana, and came to California in the eighties to help build a Buddhist temple in Sonoma County. After settling in the East Bay, I found employment in computing and practiced my adopted profession at UC Berkeley for many years. I am now retired and live with my wife in Contra Costa County.
borrowed thoughts on pictures and picture making
"Expressing what exists is a never ending task." -- Maurice Merleau-Ponty
"You look one moment and there's everything, next moment it's gone. Photography is very philosophical." -- Joel Meyerowitz
"A still photograph is the illusion of a literal description of how a camera saw a piece of time and space." -- Garry Winogrand
"The highest aim of [art] is to jolt us (albeit temporarily) into a more awake and uncertain state of mind." -- George Saunders
"Seeing is forgetting the name of what one sees." -- Paul Valéry
"One should not only photograph things for what they are, but for what else they are. -- Minor White
"And it’s that awareness of really looking at the everyday world with clear and focused attention that I’m interested in.” – Stephen Shore
"There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described." -- Garry Winogrand
"Why do most great pictures look uncontrived? Why do photographers bother with the deception, especially since it so often requires the hardest work of all? The answer is, I think, that the deception is necessary if the goal of art is to be reached: only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is commonplace." -- Robert Adams