As a painter, I never used to think about photography as part of my creative process. Photographs are useful tools: visual reminders that help initiate a painting. Utilitarian necessities, like a broom and dustpan. Using photos, I can crosscheck to make sure that the perspective in my painting has a ring of truth, or that I haven’t forgotten some important detail that helps clarify my subject. Most times, I look at photos at the beginning of a work and then toss them aside, preferring to work unfettered from inconvenient reality.

Over time, I came to realize the work of photographers whom I admire had the look and feel of paintings. Some of these artists are: Matt Mahurin, Keith Carter, Dave Mckean, Eugene Ataget, Matthew Brady and Joel Peter Whitkin. A diverse list! All of them have a supreme sense of composition and create a sense of mood and emotional atmosphere through their artistic choices. Whether using modern or early photographic tools and techniques, they bend the medium to create the emotionally powerful images they see before them. They were using photography the way that I use paint- to convey and express something specific to them.

All images, whether created through the lens of a camera, seen with my own faulty eyes, or created with a paintbrush, are loose interpretations of experience at best. Photographs are capturing a moment in time- and seem more reliable than our hand-made creations. But in fact, I have come to see photography more like a form of painting than a simple mechanical record. What I mean by that is that instead of taking a quick snapshot for reference, or even looking for reference photos online, I’ve seen that you can use the camera as a collaborator rather than a tool. All of your choices, including how you look and see, compose shots, and alter results through post production or development become subjective influences.

I never worked well using reference photos by other people, so I came to rely on my own photographs. By doing this, I’ve come to rely more and more on my own intuition behind the lens. At the “Indivisible” exhibition at the Andes School of Art last June, I was invited to exhibit two of my works that have a direct relation to one another, side by side: a photograph of The Brooklyn Bridge for reference, and the painting it became reference for. I always wanted to make a fireworks painting with the Brooklyn Bridge, so I had this in mind when selecting where to shoot the photo from. The couple I captured walking toward the bridge was happenstance, and may inspire a subsequent painting- which proves that the process of inspiration is a limitless loop!