"Are these really photographs?"
I get that a lot! And yes, they really are photographs--mostly of objects and surfaces I run across while wandering through industrial areas of Seattle.
But the finding and photographing of these raw materials out in the world is merely the first part of the adventure.
The second part of the exploration comes in the studio, when I travel deeper into the photographs themselves, digitally peering through layers of rust and corrosion, searching for secret structures, and following subtle clues that, if interpreted correctly, can reveal breathtaking landscapes and unveil immense, otherworldly vistas.
That these compelling scenes can exist all around us imbedded in the most mundane and forgotten materials, just waiting to be stumbled upon, is endlessly exciting to me.
And though I can't necessarily convey that tingly feeling of, say, suddenly finding myself face to face with an alien aquatic civilization where moments before there was merely a rust pattern on sheet of discarded metal, my hope in presenting the final pieces is that the viewer will be able to dive into the end point of my journey and perhaps reverse engineer their own voyage from there.