Creative Work

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When your hobby evolves into a profession, I believe it is important to find time to be creative. It is necessary to do work that is not related to what you do everyday.

Sometimes when I am not working, I leave the camera at home. But when I travel, my camera is my constant companion. While lugging a camera around when you travel can be a burden, I usually travel light, on the equipment side, and sometimes even bring a point and shoot film camera to capture my memories. I cannot imagine traveling without bringing my camera to record what I am seeing.

The digital darkroom has opened a whole new world to me when it comes to experimenting in photography and being creative. I like using different filters in Adobe Photoshop and creating images that are unique and different.

However I still appreciate some non-digital special effects such as photograms, and Polaroid manipulations. When I discovered Polaroid  image manipulating with a Polaroid Land Camera and SX-70 film back in early 2001, I couldn’t stop taking pictures. The technique combined my love of photography and painting as I was able to create photographs that looked like paintings. These photographs, which are digital scans of Polaroid image manipulations, involve exposing Polaroid Time Zero Film and manipulating the emulsion, before it hardens.  The image is then distorted by pushing the soft emulsion around with various tools. One tool I prefer to use is a golf tee. The manipulated images include various Berkshire County scenes from Mass MoCA and the Mohawk marquee in downtown North Adams, to a hay rake in Adams and an Adirondack chair in Williamstown. Whenever I have displayed these photos, they are always well received. The most unfortunate thing about this particular medium is that the film is now very hard to come by because Polaroid has ceased making it. So it would seem that I may have discovered this medium just a little too late.