Mistress Veronica & Maggie

In my early years as a photographer, I was pretty content to simply emulate past masters, which was basically how I self-taught myself photography— study a style, and imitate it as well as possible. Pictorialism, Hollywood Glamour, f64, Pin-ups, etc. Eventually, though, I became frustrated by my lack of any special distinction in my work— other than that is was always well done. Searching for a singular style, all I was managing was a derivative portfolio. The need to establish a personal style (and to garner gallery and/or book worthy attention) had overridden the sheer joy of simply shooting. I wanted to truly create, rather than just follow in the footsteps of others. I gradually began to develop and refine a particular vision by giving more thought to portraying something contemporary in a way that I was not seeing elsewhere. That is what you are mostly looking at in this blog— current subcultures documented with old techniques, which I find to be a wonderful mash up. Everything really came together when I applied what I learned to a newer subject matter, along with little additions of my own particular way of looking at things— which is in large part getting in (almost) uncomfortably close to my subjects as well as trying to capture genuine emotions. Hopefully, that is what is coming across here...