The Still Life, in its simplest form, is an action of arranging objects in a composition of choice by the artist. Within the act of this control, I select and juxtapose objects to play a narrative role. In some cases the story is drawn from personal experiences. In the piece titled “Butterfly” the Monarch butterfly was found dead in the backyard. My daughters wrapped it in cellophane to preserve its beauty. That same summer we had a cicada infestation, to which they responded in fear and horror. These events guided me to the resulting image with ideas of beauty, fear, death and confinement. In other cases I allow an object to guide a path. “Domestic Fetish “ is the result of removing a float ball from a faulty toilet and admiring the patina that evolved on its surface. In response to this, I empower a common object as a fetish might be regarded with a feeling of awe or mystery. The juxtaposition of foreground to background assist the narrative. In “ Tools and Toys” the foreground tools represent myself and the background toys my daughters, with the image addressing ideas of “collecting”. The foreground objects are always complete and stable with the background in transition. In the latest piece titled “Root” all the objects have a personal history. The tree roots were extracted from my yard, the pitch fork was collected from my wife's family farm, the coat was tailored from a deer hunted by my grandfather, and the background images are of my fathers youth take by his mother. Together they become a shrine of remembrance, the roots and pitch fork are joined to fashion in likeness of a fetish.

Each still life is the result of multiple photographs brought together to create the final image. A 24 inch lens was mounted in my darkroom wall. Outside the darkroom the still life is constructed projecting an image inside the darkroom. This projected image is captured onto a vertical easel made up of nine 4x5 film holders side by side in a grid. The still life is then captured one cell at a time. This allows changes to be made within the set, from one exposure to another, negating some of the conventions of photography's definable space and single moment. The film is scanned and Photoshop is used to place single images within a grid for printing. Completed works are printed with an Epson 7600 printer and Ultrachrome Inks. The image capture area ranges from 4x5 to 16x20 inches providing a large digital file size to accommodate mural output.