I'm often asked where the inspiration for my work comes from. What is my motivation for the images I capture? What is my style? Who's work am I trying to emulate? For what purpose am I taking the picture? These are challenging questions, even for me, as I don't yet (or perhaps ever will) have a specific style or "look". Like most artists, I hope I continue to grow and progress through phases of development that intrigue me, inspire me, challenge me, and satisfy me. At this stage of my life, however, I am certain of one thing -- that even though like most artists I'd love to gain a certain degree of respect or notoriety within my field, and perhaps even make enough of a living to justify the amount of energy and cost that goes into my portfolio, I'd also hate to work creatively being pigeonholed into a particular style primarily because it's profitable. I'm less interested that my work serve only the needs of commercial clients at the expense of my own creative freedom. I prefer to create work in accordance with my own interests, unlimited in how I can explore subjects that engage me.
The above image, "Charleston Steps" was the first image I produced that gave me a sense that I might want to work creatively in photography. At the time, I was a practicing arts administrator, and I pretty much lived by the phrase, "Those who can't create, arts administrate". It served as a kind of moniker for those of us in the field who often felt we lacked the skills, courage, or talent to work as a practicing professional artist -- so instead, we made a career of facilitating the work of others by finding an audience for THEIR output. It kept us close to the creative process and served an essential function in promoting our view of an advanced and informed society through art. Like many administrators, I harbored the desire to express myself artistically, but was slow to act out of fear that I might fail, and that my work would be insignificant, or worse, ridiculed.
Though I worked with film cameras since the 1980s, it wasn't until around 2010, with the acquisition of my first digital body, that I begin to consider producing work on a professional basis. Not only could I now see the immediate results of my images through the camera, I also felt I had more control of the complete artistic process from exposure and editing, to printing without the extensive investment of a darkroom, its chemicals, equipment, or an ongoing relationship with an outside lab for most color work. Up until this time, I derived my greatest pleasure in photography by simply being out in the field, alone, mostly working landscapes in the seemingly barren expanse of the Great Basin within Nevada and California along the eastern spine of the Sierra Mountains. It was in these spaces that I best connected with my spiritual self -- an extension of my times growing up on family vacations, in campsites, national parks, traveling America's heartland. We often headed towards destinations located at the extreme edges of this country, even North America -- Alaska, Florida, Newfoundland, Mexico, Turks & Caicos - driving or flying through 49 states, provinces, and countries along the way. Some were only "pass-throughs" to other destinations, but most were extended visits, mostly to rural areas, exploring the majesty of the land outdoors. My appreciation of these trips, the association with family, and the diversity of the landscapes has always since drawn me in, embraced me, and exposed its innate beauty before me, even and especially, in harsher environments like the Nevada high desert, or the vast open areas viewed from alpine summits, or across low flat open water and land. These places offered a unique opportunity to connect with a solitude in my soul. My inspiration came from artists like Ansel Adams, and the Hudson River School of painters, especially Albert Bierstadt.
My fascination with traditional landscape comes from an organic place, as if connected to God or spirit, to record its beauty, its mood, its unique presentations, its secrets -- but in time I became conscious of man's interaction with that landscape -- its poetry, its abuse, its conflicts, and decay. It became an extension of my own journey in seeking my place within a broader environment. Subjects might include historic ruins, agricultural impact, industrial abuse, or natural habitat infringement.
In exploring these images, I felt a desire to better understand the deeper context behind them. As I explored various subjects, I found myself becoming more engaged in project-type work, looking to uncover more complexities in these subjects, some of which include natural fire damage, or the social and natural evolution of western grasslands. Works in these areas often included articles written, project profiles, and public outreach to support the dissemination of this work more as a collection.
Out of man's use and impact on the land, I felt I needed to explore man's obsession for building things -- not just from a growth or invasive perspective, but from an aesthetic context through the design and placement of man-made structures. Partly due to commercial engagements in my photographing for real estate clients, I became fascinated with architecture -- the lines, perspective, vista, patterns, placement, textures, uses, and context. My interests lean more towards modern or international styles and were heavily influenced by the work of photographers, Ezra Stoller and Julius Shulman. On a broader basis, I was also interested in how these structures merged with community and their natural surroundings -- how it all fit together.
By the very nature of doing architectural work, my appreciation of black and white formats became piqued. I ventured into urban environments to seek out the buildings, but also found myself swept up in the energy of city life, engaging more with people and life within the street. Unlike landscape imagery, which has a quieter zen-like process about it, street photography is more kinetic, immediate and visceral -- capturing the energy of a situation and freezing, as Henri Cartier-Bresson called, the "decisive moment". The process requires a faster lens, quicker insights, and a bit of audacity in collecting the work. I covered protests, festivals, night scenes, and street life as a means of approaching people, being more comfortable in their space, and capturing insightful moments in everyday life. In addition to Cartier-Bresson, other influencers include Robert Frank and Vivian Maier.
This "sharper" attention to context began to play on my notions of timing, proportion, lighting, and aesthetic transition. I began to play with in-camera abstraction, long exposures, pans, collage, and distortion as a means of transcending the "stillness" I had pursued mostly with landscape and nature, working now to explore the movement and fleeting nature of any given moment -- it's here and then gone. It's also perceived differently by all who see it, and then remembered by each in a different way.
At present, I'm becoming more open to interpreting what I see, and rearranging components more abstractly, I also take a greater interest in my personal perspectives and how various photographic elements can be seemingly unrelated, but yet manipulated and extracted from the realities where they originated into something more intensely personal and unique. In post-editing I can pursue an extension of my own psyche, my own aesthetic, through layer and blending techniques to offer forth new ideas, concepts, expressions and observations.
I still work openly in all these mediums, refusing to yet settle on a particular style, and perhaps it will never come. Hopefully, I will expand into new interests and techniques. After all, my passions come from being out in the field, exploring new ground while discovering new ways with which to express what I see. The world changes, and so will I, dutifully recording the journey and transitions as they happen.
Credits:
© Shelton PhotoWorks