For me working with video is an extension of landscape photography and its ability to engage the memory and imagination through the evocation of time and place. Adding motion, image processing, and sound to the traditional photographic collaboration of subject, natural light and camera expands and reinvigorates its capability for abstraction, expression and metaphor.
Algorithms based on temporal manipulation and feedback add a unique richness and complexity, revealing both in detail and in great variation the inner qualities of any moving subject. I find this to be especially true for water in all its forms, from the endless harmony of waves on a beach, to the intricate patterns and music of freshwater rivers. These complex and ever varying movements hold a enduring attraction for me as a source of endless visual and metaphorical opportunities.
Most of the pieces I create also include sound, usually both the processed original sounds of the subject, to give it a voice, and the layering of new sounds, to provide an emotional and aesthetic context to the images. The addition of filmic editing techniques complete the transition into a cinematic realm, providing new opportunities for abstracted narrative.
Always the guide for managing this potentially overwhelming array of options is the subject itself, its form and behavior, and its particular responses to the artificial world of computerized editing and manipulation that I introduce it to. Throughout the process, great attention is also paid to traditional photographic concerns: composition, contrast, color and resolution -- the goal being to maintain the richest, most revealing image possible.
