What is your personal artistic motto or mission in a sentence or two?

Through my Art of Liberty collection, I hope to inspire and educate people about Liberty, Prosperity, and Patriotism through a combination of evocative images and powerful quotes.

What are three words that describe your style?

Inspiring

Natural

Patriotic

Where are you coming from and how did you start your artistic journey?

In college I spent a lot of time hiking, climbing, and camping. And I started taking photographs of those weekend adventures. Over the decades, landscape photography has been a consistent passion of mine. I enjoy trying to create an image that evokes the same sense of grandeur and beauty as when you first see it in nature — like that feeling when you see the first breathtaking view of Yosemite Valley after you emerge from Wawona Tunnel.

What inspires you to create? What holds you back?

Photographs cannot duplicate exactly what we see and feel in nature. But you see and appreciate a scene completely differently when you approach it with a photographer’s eye. In some ways it is a deeper experience, as you think through elements of composition and lighting, seeing it from different angles and times of day, reconfiguring it in your mind. That creative process may not reward you with the image you want but the process itself can be its own reward.

What is your favorite piece you have created or favorite art experience, and why?

My most memorable stories are my attempts to capture images of fleeting natural phenomena. Back in 2017 I traveled to Nashville to photograph a total solar eclipse. This was a brand new photographic experience for me and, because it only lasts a few minutes, you can’t really practice. I read and studied ahead of time, jury-rigged a special filter, and when the day came, we got up early, staked out a spot on the grass at the Grand Ole Opry, and set up my camera and tripod. Then we waited and watched as the clouds played peek-a-boo with the sun.

I stayed relaxed as the eclipse got underway. We had tens of minutes of partial eclipse before the three minutes of total eclipse arrived. The image I really wanted was the “diamond ring” shot — the moment just before totality, when the last glimmer of the sun shines like a diamond on the ring of the sun’s corona.

To capture that image, I needed to remove my jury-rigged filter and then just continually take shots and hope that one of them caught the exact moment of the diamond ring. The relaxing minutes of the partial eclipse were long gone, compressed into several frantic seconds. Calm returned after totality — but it was an eerie calm in the darkness.

As the sun came out from behind the moon, the clouds rolled in and covered the rest of the eclipse. I had time to review my shots. And there it was. With a bit of preparation and a lot of luck, I had the diamond ring photo I’d been hoping for.

Tell us something positive that has happened to you in the last month?

I’ve recently participated in the Green Spring Gardens Art Show and the Franconia Government Center Art Show. Placing my art in public art shows is a brand new experience for me, which never would have happened without the Springfield Art Guild and the gentle push I received from other members. I’m outside my comfort zone but it’s been a great way to get me to think about my photography in a different way. Similarly, I launched a website recently to display my photos only because of the encouragement and advice from other SAG members. I’m grateful to the artists who make up the membership of the Springfield Art Guild for all their encouragement and support.

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