At the same time I was creating photographs based on a 3:1 aspect ratio, I was also painting in a similar manner, oftentimes combining panels to create the wide field of view I was interested in. In fact, many of the images in this collection should really be part of that series. (See the Horizon & Light series in the Photography section.) I’m often influenced by music, especially music in movies. A number of the watercolor paintings were influenced by the movie Ondine, which was filmed in the beautiful landscapes of Ireland and included excerpts from the Pat Metheny song One Quiet Night, which is used to excellent effect in the movie.
The watercolor painting of a mouse, phone, USB thumb drive and ruling pen are part of an on-going series of paintings depicting implements of the modern, 21st century digital world (OK, maybe not the ruling pen).
The horizon can be hard and distinct or soft and obscure, yet it’s always there and is the universal line between heaven and earth. There’s something fascinating about it – compelling in fact – especially at certain times of day like sunrise, sunset, first light or last light. At these times, the horizon becomes a crack between worlds and we’re drawn to look more deeply. Living on an island the most obvious horizon to look into, of course, involves the ocean. But the majority of these images were looking into the mountains, the Ko‘olau, in fact.
For awhile now, I’ve been fascinated with very wide aspect ratios. I’m not really sure why, but it seems that nearly all the visual art I’ve done in the past couple of years has been very wide. During this time, I started taking the photographs that came from my digital camera and purposefully cropping them at a specific 3:1 aspect ratio. Sometimes, that still didn’t seem to be wide enough (as noted in a couple of these images). While cropping photographs in this manner might seem suspect, I found that restricting myself to the same ratio of 3:1 gave enough structure to provide a specific form while satisfying my secret desire to have a camera that actually shoots in a 3:1 aspect ratio.
Even though I live on a tropical island and the weather tends to be consistent from day to day and month to month, throughout each day, the light is always changing in some of the most amazing ways. While this is true all over the island, I found the horizon line with the mountains and the sky to be the most interesting, perhaps because there was often the additional factor of the clouds and weather, which is often more dramatic over the mountains. Even though all these images conformed to a wide aspect ratio (similar to a panorama), they actually represent only detail of the horizon (just the opposite of a panorama!). These images were taken with a long focal length lens (almost exclusively 200mm) and then cropped even narrower in some cases to represent quite a narrow field of view.
I realized that when I was going through recent photographs to add into the site, that there was a noticeable lack of landscape images – even though I consider myself a landscape photographer at heart. Not only that, the majority of these image are long exposure images, which has always been a favorite technique, but the process of sorting made me realize I want to start getting out more just to shoot nature.
Generally, I would consider myself a landscape photographer. While I’m
still primarily interested in nature photography, recently I’ve done
much more work with still life in the studio.
I’ve been particularly drawn to detail. Even in the studio I’ve been looking more and more
closely and becoming enchanted by the shapes, patterns and textures
that emerge in a closer view.
Many of these images were shot at the Kapi‘olani Community College cactus garden.
Each fall, I take a group of students there to wander around the campus and take
photographs. The cactus garden is a favorite stop.
Included in this collection are images I’ve taken of tropical flower
settings that I regularly place in my studio that help remind me of the wonderful gifts
of the natural world.
One of the many things that fascinates me about calligraphy is the structure and order
that can appear over an entire page of work.
Sometimes you don’t notice it until you’re done, especially if you’re practicing letters.
I’m continuing to work with this text from Don Quixote.
It’s a short quote, but it really gets to the point, as only proverbs and aphorisms can.
(See En Los Nidos for my explanation.)
I have a lot of new music about to be released.
This piece was finished a while ago and, in fact, an earlier version was used in a film project about Kimono culture.
