Feelings about Place center me as photographer, family member and landowner. Place is a geography of rock, river, field and woods. Place has a history, natural as well as human. Place is a home, be it homestead, henhouse, town, nest, den or cave. Place is renewal. It is history and hope for those who dwell there.
My film cameras have been focused on southwestern rural Wisconsin and rural Illinois for more than forty years. At first, my observations included the woods, river and prairies outside my door; then the closing and division of almost 10,000 acres and more than a thousand structures of the nearby Badger Army Ammunition Plant; even the ravages wrought by highway projects. All of these describe this place.
’Place’ in this same region expanded photographically to include moments when people and nature intersected, as seen in my portfolios of controlled fire in prairie and woodland, and sandhill cranes.
Firelines
As a lover of both art and science, the process of photographing controlled burns has been a perfect fit, enabling me to focus on the ephemeral nature of fire and smoke. For more than 15 years I have been embedded with controlled burn teams across central and southern Wisconsin, which resulted in more than 1000 large format black and white negatives.
How I Work in the Studio
Follow me as I develop film and print a photograph in my traditional “wet” darkroom.