Illusions of Reality

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Making pictures is a way of creating worlds within the frame that provide almost the same richness and pleasure as direct experience of the world - yet the world itself is never quite as clear as in a good photograph.” - Frank Gohlke, American Images: New Work by Twenty Contemporary Photographers.

Why do I create pictures that are puzzles? The simple answer is "Puzzles make you think." The more complex answer devolves about how puzzles make you think. Puzzles make you examine the world and ask what it is you are really seeing. What are your assumptions and why? What are you ignoring? What lies beneath the surface? Are the issues physiological, that is, physically built into the structure of my brain, or cultural, imbued in me by the society in which I grew up?

In order to live in this world, people acquire many modes of behavior that have become automatic because they must deal repeatedly with the same situations. They deal in this way with everyday encounters in order to leave space to think about their lives. Puzzles make you look at the world in a different way, requiring that you cease your preprogrammed behavior and actually look deeply at something. Only then can you begin to analyze what it is you see.

I present you with puzzles that may at first appear to be ordinary photographs but which then require you to look more closely and to examine the image to find what is actually being shown to you. These images question the relationship of man made structures to the natural world in which they are found.

Now available: A portfolio of 12 of the above images and 3 short videos showing the conception of the images is available in two formats: an epub3 format that can be viewed in iBook on the iPad, and a PDf format version. Visit the eBooks page for a complete description of this ebook and the others that are available.

These images are available as 12.5 × 19 inch or 16 × 24 inch prints. Those prices, respectively, are $300 and $500 for matted prints.