The Top Three Photographs That Changed My Art
In this video, I choose three of my images that changed the ways I think about my art and talk about them.
Plus, find out which one image I’d choose to keep if I had to lose all the others.
My Top Images Of 2019
Constellation
Constellation
Constellation
Constellation
Constellation
Revelation
Revelation
Revelation
This is a selection of my top images of 2019.
Check back later – there will be some late entries.
This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion.
Geography
The locations include Antarctica, Scoresbysund Greenland, Iceland, and Namibia.
Process
Continuing the momentum from the previous year’s experiments I combined more images from the Hubble telescope (in the public domain ) with my own exposures, expanding my series Constellation with new images of deep space as well as stars observed with the naked eye.
Fog and glassy smooth waters in Scoresbysund Greenland offered surprise “straight” additions to my series Revelation. There are many other successful exposures waiting to be finished as composites. The images I released in 2019 all have a primal quality, a felt sense of being in the presence of another consciousness.
Concepts
Ideas about a living earth have been expanded to a living universe.
Where images in my Land In Land series present married views of the same land in both an overview and a detail seen by looking very closely, images in Constellation present married views of lands and the stars that surround them offering a glimpse into deep space and time. What’s beyond the object, behind the surface, and perhaps even within it shows through.
Magic Moments
We had ten straight days of full sunshine in Antarctica. Amazing!
Still waters and thick fog persisted for several days in Greenland’s, Scoresbysund.
Standing out the door on the rail of a helicopter above Icelandic rivers was thrilling.
It was a very productive year; more than 75 new works released; more than 150 new studies made.
It’s challenging to choose so few images from so many – but it’s insightful. Try selecting your own top 12 images. Try selecting the top 12 images of your favorite artist(s).
View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.
View more images in my ebooks here.
View my full Works here.
View my Series videos here.
View new images in my newsletter Collectors Alert.
My Top 12 Photographs Of 2018
Constellation
Constellation
Constellation
Constellation
Constellation
Constellation
Antarctica
This is a selection of my top 12 images of 2018. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.
Geography
The locations include Antarctica, Spain, Arches National Park, Scoresbysund Greenland, and Maine.
Process
Continuing the momentum from the previous year I completed my first seriesof finished works with my iPhone – Land In Land. Processing images on location, sometimes seconds after making exposures, is a gamechanger. Even more interesting is the sense of seeing the image better at arm’s length, allowing me to see the composition and the subject simultaneously.
I was pleasantly surprised when another experiment worked as I combined images in the public domain from the Hubble telescope with my own exposures, expanding the images in my series Constellation to add images of deep space to those of stars observed with the naked eye.
Concepts
I continue to explore presenting many moments in time simultaneously to see one aspect of land through another. In more recent work, the detail and the overview are united in a single integrated experience. As ever, what’s behind and beyond shows through.
My use of abstraction has expanded from minimalism to include more complex maximal patterns.
Magic Moment
Perhaps the most sublime moments were found in Greenland’s, Scoresbysund, as the weather shifted to winter conditions creating dramatic katabatic winds and unusual ice conditions found only at the beginning of the season. Being on the only boat (a three-masted schooner built in the early 1900s) in the fiord system heightened the sense of adventure.
It was a very productive year; more than 75 new works released; more than 150 new studies made.
It’s challenging to choose so few images from so many – but it’s insightful. Try selecting your own top 12 images. Try selecting the top 12 images of your favorite artist(s).
View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.
View more images in my ebooks here.
View my full Works here.
View my Series videos here.
View new images in my newsletter Collectors Alert.
My Top 12 Photographs Of 2017
Interference
Interference
Land In Land
Land In Land
This is a selection of my top 12 images of 2017. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.
Geography
The locations include Antarctica, New Zealand, Valley Of Fire, Joshua Tree, Obsidian Dome, Death Valley, and Maine.
Process
2017 marks the first year where I produced series of finished works (rather than sketches) with my iPhone, sometimes on location seconds after making exposures. While chasing one series Land In Land (combining macro abstract details with the larger landscapes they were drawn from) another series emerged Interference (combining wave patterns found in dunes into even more complex abstractions).
Concepts
I intensified my efforts to create flatter horizonless abstractions with strong emotionally expressive qualities. Drawn elements successfully found their ways into many of them. The qualities of earth art are even more strongly felt.
Magic Moment
There were truly sublime moments in Antarctica, especially during a few crystal clear days. Still, there were so many moments where I felt deeply moved by and connected to all of these landscapes, and that transformative energy is the true magic. The magic happens inside.
It was a very productive year; more than 75 new works released; more than 150 new studies made; and my first serious forays into making related sculptures. (Stay tuned.)
It’s challenging to choose so few images from so many – but it’s insightful. Try selecting your own top 12 images. Try selecting the top 12 images of your favorite artist(s).
View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.
My Top 12 Images Of 2016
This is a selection of my top 12 images of 2016. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.
Geography
While I visited most of the biomes in one year (all seven continents in 18 months), the images I released were drawn primarily from the artic and antarctic regions.
Process
Straight images from Antarctica were processed on location, mostly in Lightroom. Composite images were created in studio, mostly in Photoshop after launching from Lightroom. I date “straight” shots based on the date they were exposed and composites on the date they are completed.
Concepts
I focussed on a long-standing theme, creating symmetries drawn from the land to better reveal the spirit within. The final resolution has prompted me to remaster many related files made in 1996. I released multiple related series of studies, including a series of digitally rendered inkblots.
Magnificent Moment
There was big magic in 2016! In Antarctica there were moments of extreme quietude amid the lifting fogs at Black Head and the glassy reflections in Antarctica’s Plenneau Bay. We experienced the epically varied lands of New Zealand; in one day we moved from a waterfall strewn fiord, through a rainforest, up to a high arid plateau, and finally to the base of a glacier. Sublime light filled hours and hours, as we flew helicopters over Namibia’s Sossusvlei dune fields, which roll out to the Skeleton Coast. All of these adventures were long-held dreams come true.
It’s challenging to choose so few images from so many – but it’s insightful. Try selecting your own top 12 images. Try selecting the top 12 images of your favorite artist(s).
View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.
View more images in my ebooks here.
My Top 12 Images Of 2015
Untitled
Untitled
This is a selection of my top 12 images of 2015. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.
Geography
My obsession continued with places defined by water (either an abundance of it or a lack of it) in the polar-regions of Greenland and Iceland and in the deserts (an absence of water, yet often shaped by waters long gone) of Namibia, Argentina, and California.
Process
Half the images I released in 2015 were exposed in other years. Several of the other images were processed on location or the day they were exposed. I date “straight” shots based on the date they were exposed and composites on the date they are completed.
Concepts
There were several new twists on old subjects and themes: amid sensual dunes multiple moments / perspectives became conjoined; levitating stones became ice; below reflective water surfaces instead of closer details full landscapes are seen; seeing through things to what lies behind them shifted from skies to landscapes.
Magnificent Moment
Once again, flying over the 1,500 foot coral dunes of Sossusvlei for more than an hour was simply divine, especially when coupled with the hours spent walking its shifting surfaces in constantly changing light.
It’s challenging to choose so few images from so many – but it’s insightful. Try selecting your own top 12 images. Try selecting the top 12 images of your favorite artist(s).
View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.
My Top 12 Images Of 2014
This is a selection of my top 12 images of all time. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.
Geography
Antarctica, Argentina, Iceland, California
Process
I added something new to old projects; Antarctica and Constellation. I began moving forward on bringing a long-standing series to completion; Alignment. I released the first images from a new series Contrail that shows man’s marks in nature found in even the most remote places on earth; a complementary companion series of is soon to be released.
Concept
Similar themes echo throughout most of my individual series creating a shared network of connections. Alignment connects with Contrail and Refraction in different ways. Constellation connects with Correspondence in other ways. More connections are revealed over time.
Magnificent Moment
An hour and a half flying over Iceland’s south coast is magnificent but four hours of zodiac crusing in Antarctica’s Plenneau Bay (The Iceberg Graveyard) followed by three hours of dramatic light while passing through the La Mer Channel is even more magnificent.
It’s challenging to choose so few images from so many – but it’s insightful. Try selecting your own top 12 images. Try selecting the top 12 images of your favorite artist(s).
View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.
My Top 12 Photographs
Oriens
Updated 2013
This is a selection of my top 12 images of all time. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the world wide web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.
Geography
Read The Most Sublime Landscape Experiences Of My Life here.
Process
20% straight. 80% composites.
Poetry, by any means necessary.
Experiment to find out what’s possible.
Concepts
A profound shift in consciousness arises when we relate to the world (all of it) as parts of a living thing into whose fibers we are deeply woven before birth and after death. Just as every individual has a unique spirit, every location has its own unique spirit (Genius loci is the latin translation of what the Greeks called this.), which fits into the larger world spirit (Anima mundi is the latin translation of what the Greeks called this.) We are not apart from nature, we are a part of Nature.
Magnificent Moment
Read about the most Sublime Moments of my life here.
View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.
My Top 12 Images Of 2012
Reflection LVIII
Reflection LVII
Illumination VI
Illumination II
Illumination VII
Illumination III
Illumination XVII
Suffusion XV
Suffusion XIX
Suffusion XXVI
Suffusion XXI
Suffusion XX
This is a selection of my top 12 images of all time. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.
Geography
These images are drawn from three locations – Bolivia’s Uyuni salt flats, Namibia’s Sossusvlei dune files, and Iceland’s Skogafoss waterfall.
Process
These images were all drawn from three separate hour-long sessions each yielding complete individual portfolios. I used to think I’d be lucky if I got one really good image from a shoot, but after a few experiences where more than one really good image was made from a single subject, I cast aside my limited thinking. Now I ask, “How far can I take this?”
Concepts
All of these images come out of a way of relating to the world (all of it) as parts of a living thing into whose fibers we are deeply woven. In addition to changing organic forms, they all have a strong suggestion of breath.
Magnificent Moment
They’re all nominees for my list of most sublime landscape experiences. While standing silently focused on Iceland’s Skogafoss waterfall was the fulfillment of many years of looking for my own original response to a classic subject, and walking in the clouds reflected on the surface of Bolivia’s Uyuni salt flats was the realization of a long-standing dream, few landscape experiences compare to the hour spent flying over Sossusvlei Namibia’s 1,500 foot high coral dunes after a sustained sandstorm – the experience was so penetrating it took me quite some time to clearly see the new directions and new levels it offered.It’s challenging to choose so few images from so many – but it’s insightful. Try selecting your own top 12 images. Try selecting the top 12 images of your favorite artist(s).
View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.