"You cannot depend on your eyes if your imagination is out of focus."  —Mark Twain

In the Field

In the field, I work slowly, mostly walking and observing, only occasionally making an exposure after careful consideration. Once a potential photograph has been identified, the camera and lens are mounted on the tripod and placed into position. The camera’s rear LCD is used to frame the composition, manually focus the lens, and manually set the exposure. Once everything is in place, a series of bracketed exposures are made to capture the full dynamic range present within the scene. The deliberate process is not unlike using a large format view camera, minus the weight, expense, and other difficulties associated with sheet film.

The Digital Darkroom

Capturing the image in the field is only the first step. Post-processing and printing are equally important parts of the creative process. I use a purely digital workflow that starts with full-color, raw data files that are transferred from the camera to the iPad Pro for initial culling before being imported into Adobe Lightroom. Typical edits include exposure, contrast, and detail optimization, followed by creative edits ranging from dodging and burning small areas, to cloning, healing, selective sharpening, and a variety of other pixel-level manipulations. The fully processed files are then prepared for output to a digital silver gelatin process that combines the beauty of traditional black-and-white darkroom photography with the precision of modern digital technology.