A brother of mine, I have many, once told me he would no longer shoot baskets in the alley behind our house, citing the need to master his shot through visualization and practicing form, not actual shooting. He learned this approach after learning that Jerry West, a Hall of Fame basketball player and owner of a beautiful jump shot, applied similar techniques.

My camera, and me, have suffered similar distractions, staying apart for long stretches, interrupted by life, and big ideas, but very little actual shooting. I’m better now, or try to be. I get out more often, inspired by nascent ideas, though not always certain where my uneven energy and need to wander will lead.

Decades in, my photographic vision continues to shift. As learned over a long working career, I drift when not exploring new ways to express how I see. Though patently genre resistant, my pictures maintain a clear stylistic sensibility. Mostly, I make pictures in black and white, yet like a child with a new box of crayons, I’m haphazardly energized by color. My photographs seek to tell stories, as shown in my ongoing Long Home project (book pending), an oral history of Vietnam War veterans more than a half century home from war.

More often these days, I walk along city streets, gravitating away from the center toward empty spaces, decay and renewal, in search of the interplay of light and shadow, where my mind and eye roam and experience the mundanity of daily with a sense of irony and humor. There are times too - I wish there were more - when I’m drawn to people, faces, strangers. These moments often get derailed however, as seen in my human avoiding Still Life project.

More often than not, my best pictures are neither tack sharp nor technically perfect. I rarely deploy complex lighting, tripods, fancy gadgetry, or sophisticated editing tools, not always for lack of trying. I make small progress in fits and starts - learning and re-learning - as I continue to wander and struggle to grasp our complex, messy world. ‍