There has been a little water under the bridge since those last images from Montana: A pandemic, a lot of pictures made for specific ends, a lot of video made that helped inform thoughts of time and place, am whole lot of work for, well, work. There are strange congruences between the landscapes of the front range of Montana and the Scottish highlands: vast complex, open spaces structured by masses of land and water, textured mountains and fields and active skies that paint the land with light, shadow and rain. Scotland was probably the space I needed to see at a time when I was ready to see it.
These images are works in progress, a throw a way line I know, but with all the water that passed under the proverbial bridge came a lot of looking, seeing, learning. Ansel Adams' ideas about the image as a structured score to be explored and articulated make more sense than ever. COVIDtide pounded home daily thoughts about the ephemeral nature of our lives, pressed hard and contrasted against the strength and continuity of the human experiences and lives who made these difficult places home. It is not possible to see either Scotland or Montana and not see the depth of history and the stories of the generations who came and lived there, many of those generations left the western isles and went to places like Montana and Maine ( where I was from once).
Oh, and then there are discussions to have about notions of the sublime and empathy...not ready to even start to think about how that all fits.
In the mean time, see what you think of these...so far.
