Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Great news! Lenswork Magazine just picked up some of my work!!

Ce matin, après nous nous sommes levés, après le petit déjeuner, et après j'ai pris une douche, I opened my morning email to find the following.

Christopher,
Congratulations! We've reviewed your PDF submission to LensWork titled Hauntings of Gothic Ghosts and have selected it for publication in issue #111 (Mar-Apr 2014) of LensWork Extended. We are very excited to include your work and know that our readers around the world will find your photographs of interest an inspiration.


This is great news!

It will be the second time Lenswork Magazine has picked up my work to share it with their readers.  The first time I got to share some of my steamlocomotive images.  That was in Lenswork Extended #78.  During the interview I was very nervous and the room I recorded my answers in sounded like a barn.  It was the restart of a growing list of published works.


When I was much younger, my images were published from time to time in motorcycle and automobile magazines.  Southern California was the place to be for photographers and motorsports writers at that time.  While I never participated in that culture to the degree successful artists did, it is fun to look back and consider those early days.  I still have some of the magazines in storage back in the States and may have to dig them out and bring them back to France with me.

Over the past ten years as I have engaged digital photography, my image output has increased dramatically.  I always shot a lot of film, but the new technologies allow me to simultaneously explore numerous veins of creative expression.  Wherever my mind's eye looks, it seems, I'm off and running to see what can be created.

Two years ago my wife and I moved from America to Paris, France.  When we made the move, I knew I would have the chance to spend time in places that tourists usually only get a few moments in.  The great monuments, the wonderful parks, and the lesser known places are all within 20 minutes of our apartment.  It would be a shame to squander such a fabulous opportunity.


When I shot the Hauntings of Gothic Ghosts, I wanted to express how I feel whenever I visit one of Paris' great 1800's cemeteries.  The history, funerary art, and roll-call of who is buried in these sites is to me continually impressive.

Looking at some of the themes I tend to shoot in (heavy textures, modified color spaces, subjects who dress at the edges of culture) I am smiling to think the Hauntings of Gothic Ghosts series is nearly "straight" photography.  "Straight" in the sense of fewer rather than more image manipulations.

Those who know me are probably laughing, shaking their heads, and wondering what I'll be up to next.  "Stay tuned", as we used to say.

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