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SNAPSHOTS

This series is an exploration of a simple fence separating a residential home and a commercial parking lot. Most of us find the mysterious and the exotic attractive. However, few of us actively recognize that we live in a polarized universe. As in physics where every action creates an equal and opposite reaction, so too does everything come in polar opposites; we cannot use just one side of a polarity without inviting its opposite pole. There is no night without day and no male without female. So, with the intention of finding the exotic and the mysterious, I began this shoot with the utterly mundane: a simple fence separating a commercial parking lot from a residential home. The fence itself is the razor’s edge between the opposite poles residential/commercial. In post-production I began layering the images and at once engaged the polarity obscure/reveal. Throughout this project I engaged my favorite polarity: intent/openness. I intended strong images that were exotic, even mysterious, while remaining completely open as to how that would occur.

For many decades biologists chose remote and exotic locations such as Madagascar for their research. However, early in the 21st century a paper was published on the impact of domestic cats on suburban ecology. The late arrival of this paper reflects people’s fascination with the exotic, and yet the paper itself reveals that the exotic exists in our own backyard. My work is a corollary for this study of ordinary domestic cats. Rather than seeking the overtly exotic, I seek to uncover the exotic that lies within the mundane. In a sense, I am as much alchemist as artist.

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