2004 Photographer's Statement
Photographs are not just memories. Photos are slices of our lives which represent not just the important events in our lives, but also the too-often-considered “inconsequential” activities and stages in our lives – bedtime… first baseball games… hopscotch on the sidewalk… or a simple walk through the neighborhood.
I take pictures to immortalize these slices of our lives, that combined, form who we are as individuals, as families, and as a community. These same slices of our lives are also part of our legacy, and become the slices of our lives that form the lasting remembrances or who we are.
Photography is important to me. Photographs leave our legacy of how we experience(d) our world. I want to create my slices of life and I want to create slices that contribute to the legacy of my clients. Photography is important. Leaving a legacy is important. YOUR slice is important.
Every click of the shutter adds another slice to our lives – on our walls, in our photo albums, and in desk frames. And sometimes at the bottom of a wicker basket. These are sometimes the snapshots that most warm our hearts. Five, ten… 20 years… viewed by family, friends, colleagues – future family… glimpses of our lives from photographs. Photos are important. Photos are powerful. Photos represent the slices of our lives.
Over a weekend a few Novembers ago I experienced the first Minnesota snowstorm of the year. When I was out shooting it, what did I see? Sure, the storm, but even more, part of my life. What I saw was the blizzards growing up visiting my grandparent’s farm. You know those winters – snowdrifts were ten feet high and we’d snowmobile all day. Okay, so the snowdrifts were only three feet high and we snowmobiled for only 30 minutes until our hands and feet were numb – but that’s unimportant. What’s important is that slice of life we want to remember, not always as it actually was. Our parents really didn’t walk up-hill both ways to school – but I like to “picture” they did.
I have many slices of my life that define me: my mom and I watching sunsets together during family vacations (thanks Mom); playing hot-box until sundown; the smell of Bounce emanating from dryer vents as I cruised through the neighborhood on my bike; high school football games; every autumn I’ve been alive; fishing with my dad and brothers (thanks Dad); the smell of backyard barbeques… these are the events I think about when I’m out shooting. They are all indelible slices of my life.As a photographer, I feel a partial responsibility to appreciate these events of today as slices of life that help my clients appreciate today and add slices to their lives.