These were shot on and around the Stockholm archipelago from 2013-2015. A written statement of the works can be found below these images.
Statement for Islands of Stability:
I live an incredibly chaotic life–my family and I have moved cross-country or internationally 12 times in 20 years–and it creates an tremendous amount of disruption and stress every time. What I do in order to make sense of my life is take pictures. I do not have peace in my life, but I can create it with my photography. One of our many moves was to Stockholm, Sweden in 2013. While there, I walked and walked and walked every day–I tried to walk as much as possible of the 25,000 islands that make up the Stockholm Archipelago. It was peaceful and calm, which is exactly what I wish to convey with my images–they are my “Islands of Stability.” In this series, and in most of my work, I am more interested in evoking an emotion or a mood than I am in representing a specific place.
Color is my main consideration; discovering elements of nature using color in unexpected ways is what I like. I also like edges–places where water meets rock, lichen meets granite, etc. I prefer to use areas of focus rather than all-over sharpness. My use of selective focus is two-fold: first, I wish for the viewer to slow down and spend time with the work. I hope to engage interest by not giving a complete set of instructions for the visual experience, by creating a puzzle for the viewer’s brain to solve. Second is more physiological–I have limited vision in one eye, so I literally see the world differently than someone with two equally functioning eyes. My visual cues for depth in particular are probably quite different from “normal.”
Time is also very important in my work–these images take a lot of time. They took time to create–walking, finding, shooting, printing–and they take time to consider. For most of these works, I used an old Hasselblad 501C with a 40 mm lens, retrofitted with a digital back (which, significantly, broke at the completion of this series). The camera is always used handheld, which defintely slows me down. Occasionally I give myself a break and use a Leica point-and-shoot.
Nature is a stabilizing force for all, and my subject in this series is the peace found therein. Thank you for spending time with my works.