I fully expect my new expansion into photography from retouching for 13 years and a fine art background to bring up a few basic questions. Here, I attempt to give some clear answers.

Why expansion into photography?

In short, so I can become a complete digital artist.

I began to explore our connection to the earth with my fine art and I would now like to use photography to develop a visual language of sustainability and aliveness for commercial markets.

I can have more control over my own destiny by creating my own photography imagery with a story and meaning that solves visual communication needs for art directors.

How does photography relate to your previous retouching and fine art?

With my fine art montages, I explored the spiritual levels of meaning with our relationship with the earth. Through these experimental montages, I had the chance to explore new forms, textures and spatial relationships.

This opened the development of my retouching skills of bringing to life the visual directions of art directors. Over the years, the breadth and depth of imagery I have has helped me develop my awareness of what defines captivating photography.

How does photography complement your other digital skills?

I have spent much of my energy this past year giving myself a strong structure with my equipment, digital asset management system, expanded retouching skills, and connections with other Photographers through ASMP. Essentially, this allows me to be a professional creative. My expansion with digital photography and its visual tools allows me to expand into expressions of meaning and building relationships.

Studio photography allows me to shoot concepts in one shot when this is the easiest route. Or, when a project is better completed in layers in Photoshop, I can shoot the layers myself. In short, I push it in-camera and then push it some more in Photoshop as the image gets prepared for its intended media.

What can you say with your new studio photography that you haven’t been able to do before?

I am attracted to starting with nothing and ending up with an emotionally captivating image that is created with light, has rich texture and color and has layers of meaning.

As a Retoucher, I am the hand through which Art Directors visually speak using the photographic material I am supplied. Now, I can offer a visual voice for building relationships.

Why food?

Food presents itself as my photographic specialty path of least resistance for a number of reasons.

It has been a personal interest of mine for a long time. A few years ago, my Sister attracted me to raw food. The experience of eating a well-harmonized raw meal gives me a joyful experience of nourishment and aliveness. For about a couple of years now, I have been giving raw food cooking demonstrations to my spiritual group, Science of Spirituality.

Now, I want to offer the experience of vicariously eating various foods through photography. We have an obvious, deep-seated attraction to these accessible forms because we eat them. We have a complex relationship with our food that involves social layers of meaning, pleasure, nourishment, and nutrition. We are what we eat. I want to explore food as colors and color harmony that we eat, and food textures, forms, and their connection to the earth.

Broadly speaking, I want develop a language of sustainability, explore the green economy, our connection to the earth through our food, and do commercial exploration with the five elements. It gives me transferable skills for potential expansion into areas such as product, beauty and landscape.

We’ll see where this all leads.

Any interest in returning to fine art?

While my commercial work is my focus right now, I would like to bring fine art back into my life on a more consistent basis. I have projects on my data drive that I have been developing. I have found having both outlets expands my creativity because they open each other up.

Through the micro world of food, I would like to further explore the connections to nature’s global processes of the five elements. Also, I would like to explore the timelessness of our soul through photography on an individual and universal level.

Anything else wanting to come out that has been welling up?

Photography includes light as its material – which is barely physical, and surface textures – which describe our physical world as we see it. I want to explore the contrast of these two extremes as I move forward.

As I grow and develop with my work, I strive to bring out a heightened awareness of an energetic presence enlivening the forms of our world.