For me, there are two decisive moments in photography; 1) when I take the photograph and 2) when I discover what it means. It is only during the discovery process when I study the image and return to the moment it was made, that I truly understand what compelled me to press the shutter when I did and what the image conveys to me. As I’ve developed as a photographer and writer, I’ve also come to believe there are times when accompanying text is required to complete a composition.

Portfolios with text and images

There are four portfolios on this site that include text with images. “Finding Christina” and “Summer in Farlow Park” are stories about a place and time. Each is a body of work in progress. The images in “Moments” and “Reflections” are grouped together because they share a process—a process that was initiated by my response to the photograph.

Finding Christina

“Finding Christina” is a search for the grandmother I never knew. Christina Solum was born in Sigdal, Norway, in 1850 and died nearly 40 years before my birth. Although ignored in the retelling of family history, she was a remarkable woman. While her husband worked four jobs, she raised eight sons who went on to shape the worlds of government and industry.

In my search for Christina, I use the present as a lens to reimagine her journey as marked by episodes in her life. My first set of images, “Leaving,” was made in her home village of Sigdal, Norway. In the text accompanying these images, I evoke how she must have felt as she contemplated leaving her home and prepared to depart for America. For my second set of images, “Arriving, I will visit the old port in Quebec City this June 2023 to honor the 157th anniversary of her arrival there after seven weeks in steerage on the bark Askur. By researching the history of her time and visiting the older sections of the city, I can summon visions of her past and imagine her feelings upon her arrival. Future sets of images will include revisiting the family’s overland voyage by train and steamship from Quebec to Decorah, Iowa, and traveling north to settle on a farm in Alexandria, Minnesota.

Summer Is… A Season in Farlow Park

“Summer Is… A Season in Farlow Park” reflects my daily pilgrimage to our local park during the height of Covid. Every morning, shortly after the sun rose, my dog Nellie and I would set out for our local park. The walk became a ritual, a pilgrimage, and, for more than a year, brought comfort as Nellie and I negotiated the pandemic one step at a time. This portfolio presents one season in a photographic and meditative remembrance of that year.

Reflections

Some images lead me to probe the layers of the photographic experience. When I encounter these images, I recall how I was immersed in competing fragments of awareness when I made them. These fragments now emerge as a narrative thread. Such photographs require extensive conversations with the past and are presented in the portfolio, “Reflections.”

Moments

Upon seeing this type of image, my response is almost reflexive; a jolt of recognition, an “Aha!” from that slice of time, and affinity with the unbidden I felt during the moment of spontaneous connection. These images are presented in the portfolio entitled “Moments.”

Image Only Portfolios:   

Some photographs, however, resist words. They look past me, speaking directly to the viewer, and appear, as captured, in the portfolios, “Travels” and “Seeing in Black & White.”

Travels 2015–2020

These pre-pandemic images were made during trips when my training as an anthropologist prompted me to search for the visual markers of how decisions made over time shape societies. I sought to find material artifacts that reflected collective memories knowing that individuals are affected by their immersion and participation in material culture. Yet, despite the differences in environments and in how societies address human needs, there are universal aspects of what it means to be human that are revealed through photography. These subtle gestures of personhood are what interest me. This portfolio includes images made in Cuba, Japan, and Morocco—three countries in which traditional values still shape behavior even as they embrace modern technology.

Seeing in Black and White, 2015–2020

The images in “Seeing in Black and White” were made at the same time as those in the “Travels” portfolio, but because they are monochromatic, they speak to us in a different voice. Tonal borders define the form and shape of objects. By emphasizing detail and differentiation, black-and-white images show us a more abstract world, one defined by tonality, texture, and contrast. They make the familiar look unfamiliar