I use digital photography to explore the physical and cultural landscape of Greater Los Angeles, and, occasionally, of other nearby places.

My work has taken the form of multiple projects, each with its own narrative, point of view, and/or geographical focus.  Nevertheless, each of these projects has been shaped by my fascination with the large-scale cultural change that is being experienced in the region. 

My long-term photographic project has been to create urban “moments of seeing,” i.e., to provide feeling-intense images of everyday life in this change-filled era.

I have a moral point of view.  I want to provide images that encourage people to connect their experience of Los Angeles with reflections about civic culture and social justice. I do not want to promote a sour, moralistic mentality.  I  want people to recognize the humor they encounter daily on Los Angeles streets. Just as much, I want people to recognize that the Los Angeles metropolitan area is filled with beauty and energy, not just with violence, stressed traffic, multiethnic hostility, and other forms of ugliness.

Although I am not self-consciously trying to limit the categories of images that I capture, I repeatedly return to places that are slated for urban renewal, public facilities, portraits, street scenes, commercial signs, and political posters and stickers.

There is a populist bent to my work. My lens often aims at people and structures whose presence is unwelcome--e.g., industrial buildings, eccentrics, homeless people, public displays of outsider art, posters that are plastered on city walls, and billboards.  Urban life creates victims, outsiders, and structures-waiting-to-be-demolished.  Their profile tells us a great deal about Los Angeles metropolitan values.

I want my photographic images to be intense. To accomplish this, as often as possible I try to move up very close. I am not afraid of producing highly saturated images. I often use lens settings that create crisp detail. I often crop my images in an effort to increase their visual intensity. I am pleased when these images are experienced as confrontational.

There is one more habit that I should mention.  When I encounter unwelcome people and places, my romanticist impulses surge.  I search for ways of portraying them that emphasize their beauty.  I carefully consider matters related to composition. It is a serious mistake, I believe, to turn away from one’s immediate urban environment to seek beauty mainly in nature or in other sentimentalized non-urban settings.