I find myself asking, as well as being asked often by others, about the environments in which most of my photographs take place. What is the story that underlies the places I choose to make my pictures? Nothing seems to make sense on the surface. I was born in Manhattan, raised in a mostly urban environment, yet my leanings and sense of sustenance is not usually there. I am attracted to landscapes where the hand of man is evident but not in an urban presence. Usually, I am attracted to an agrarian landscape or garden that has been tilled for centuries by farm workers whose voice has been one of caretaker rather than over-taker. Also, I am not a wilderness person. In fact, I am far from it. I do not like large mountains, deserts or places where the presence of man is not subscribed. I never like to feel thirsty. The earth, the landscape must feel abundant and furtive. I was never able to find the magical light of the high desert or the majesty of the mountains as inspiring to me as a well-tended landscape or garden. Having said this, it is no wonder I am attracted to European landscape and architecture where history and life are felt everywhere, yet all seems in order, peaceful, and well regarded. If one were to take this even further, I find myself most attracted to The National Trust Gardens of England or The French Royal Gardens of France. It is here where I am most pleased by the grand but still intimate scale of these gardens and houses, where trees are pollarded and treated as giant shrubs and evergreens formed into conical topiaries seem whimsical and perpetual. These are gardens that need full attention to stand upright at their best. But even so, despite their formalness, there is a relaxed gracious character to them that can be found in small corners and in small folly buildings around the gardens. When one walks these gardens, one is surrounded by green upon green. These gardens are of shape and form, not of flower. They are like rooms within rooms. There are exotic shades of evergreen mixed with the deciduous greens of hornbeam, lyme, and horse chestnut trees. I cannot imagine a more festive, nor restful place to be on a cold December morning, than in a small room of trees, all whispering to me, as a new day, a new year is about to begin.

I think as we approach the Birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, along with serendipitously yours truly, I think it only fitting to now have a truly serious and profound discussion with you, my dear reader. I feel after over one year of trying to tell you (in the most intimate details) the why, the how and the what of my life and it’s effect on my pictures. It is now time to take one step further downtown into the protected recess of my cerebrum to discuss my need for my belief in Santa Claus. This is not just a yearly yearning for Old Man Claus to drop down the chimney and bestow my family with gifts. Unfortunately, it is way beyond this. In order to do justice to my explanation of why Santa exists, I must retreat back, further back, putting a 50mm lens on my Hasselblad to be able to stand way back and look at the entire opus of my work. With this overview in mind, I began to ascertain certain truths about me,  my perspective on life, my subjects, my locations, my styling, my relationships, etc. but if you look even closer you begin to notice that this Christmas Eve baby has a peculiar and to many, a very outdated weltanschauung. For those of you not versed in theological discourse, you may want to translate weltanschauung into a kind of worldview. My particular view on the world underlies everything I do photographically. Whether I am photographing a farmer in tears, or a CEO joyful for the enormous Christmas bonus he is to receive shortly. It is seen in models I choose, in the landscapes, and in the locations. It is omnipresent in my work. This little unseen element, my voice, comes across in every picture I make. Some of you are voiceless, not because you don't have one, but you haven't found it yet or you are too frightened to let it speak but that is for another workshop. So through the years, both academically and theologically, and with an enormous amount of introspection, I began to study the nature of man, but not just any man, this man, myself, me. Slowly over time I have discovered what this little voice has been saying throughout my photographic history. First, despite my outward appearance that the glass may appear only half full, this voice exposed quite the opposite. My photographs are a world of optimism and happiness. There is often whimsy and joy in the pictures. Secondly, and perhaps most deeply and most importantly, although I am most fundamentally embedded in the soil, my pictures speak often of a life that is just around the corner, just barely out of reach. They are plausible but it requires extra effort to be there. I guess that is why they are often referred to as aspirational. This is very important. This is like confronting a void, and believing there is something on the other side. It is wondering at the possibilities…

Some gifts are easily given and easily taken, while others surprise you with their generosity and knowledge and are the kind of gift that is hard to describe. I am going to try to tell you how I learned to see rather than just look, and how this has helped me teach others how to learn to be themselves and express this so others may see. This is a story about why teaching is sometimes the greatest gift we can give. In the fall of 1966, off to a University I went with my ties, jackets, and all my emotions wrapped into an elaborate suitcase. I was full of wonder with powerful feelings surging through my body, like some mysterious energy that needed an outlet. It felt like a continuous flowing river that needed an outlet, similar to a river winding it's way to the ocean. I had hoped and assumed that literature was my outlet. I came with a love of words, hoping to find a way through novels to express my feelings. It is the great literature I love. I found a constrained, yet beautiful and graceful, way through books to delve into the human condition. There was something in this process that was liberating to me. It touched unconsciously on all my troubles. I was young, vibrant, alive and full of enthusiasm. As expected, I quickly gravitated toward the English Department in search of teachings to help me continue my quest to find the heart of the matter. I found it in the literature but not in the teaching. I found the teaching too banal, academic, and conceptual. While Leer is raging at the world of his blindness to see clearly, the teaching was unemotional and lost in the abstraction of the text. This did nothing to sooth my restless and needy soul. One afternoon, I wandered into a class in the young, fledgling religious studies department. It was a theology and literature class, and all at once I had found my home for the next few years. It was not that I was spiritually in need of help (although who isn't) it was just that the existential questions of life (the nature of evil, the nature and destiny of man) were lauded and questioned. The questions we confronted were based on human existence, who are we, and what is our purpose in life? The questions that confront all of us as human beings were not avoided, but were rather allowed to come to the surface as if it were the cream rising to the top of a cup of coffee. I loved it. I didn't understand why or how. But I knew this was the way for me. The game of life was afoot, and by no means was I going to be left behind. I began the eternal search of who am I and what do I feel? This quest lasted through graduate school and over 40 years of therapy and now I am willing…

Many years ago, I remember dreading taking this picture because up to this point, most of the pictures I had made were of a single woman. This was one of the first times I was called upon to make a strong picture of two women. I was now shooting a landscape with two figures placed in it. I saw this spot and placed the two figures into the landscape and immediately, to my surprise, it felt right. A foot in either direction and the whole picture would have fallen apart. There is something about my relationship to them, their relationship to each other, as well as our relationship to the environment that feels wonderful and mysterious. This picture has always felt resolved, yet unresolved, with everything in the right place, everything in order, but even though all is well, nothing is answered. More questions are raised, and more issues unresolved. I think the two figures lead you into this place. They are attractive, slightly sexy, and timeless. They appear to some as if from "The Last Year at Marienbad." This picture, like many of the outdoor pictures I shoot, is made in a space that feel like an exterior room. I've often been told that my exteriors feel like interiors. I think this is correct. I think people do experience my exteriors as an interior spaces. I will explain why this is the case... For most photographers, placing someone in front of something whether an icon or simply some exterior, unconsidered location is their idea of a portrait etc. This is not mine. The purpose of this picture, and many other of my images, is to know how to fit people into their environment, rather than haphazardly placing them in front of it. Having the figures within the space rather than in front of it, makes all the difference. You can tell how I feel about them from how I have placed them in their world. They are in it, not apart from it, yet it is still incomplete and begs you to inquire about their story. Photographers must learn about themselves so they can learn to properly fit their subjects and themselves into a world they may fear or may not know. It is not my intention to stand outside or apart from life as a sociologist might, recording and viewing the world but not participating in it. Although in the non-photographic parts of my life, I do. I am always on the search, almost a quest for a certain place where I can be one. I think this appears in my photographs. The locations, as much as the pictures, tell of my yearnings for resolution both within the world and within myself. As we end this year I keep wondering how I will fit into this brave new world. Am I in the right place at the wrong time? Or do I offer an entry, a vision, to a slightly more attractive and nicer place you may have forgotten…