"Beacher's Zoo"

I am what you might call a hyper-collagist. I call myself a Tesseractor of images. Some would say I'm just a photoshop nerd.

I was not born with the steady hand of artists who with eye and equilibrium and immaculate breathing can grab the hummingbird out of the air and present it to you in all its microscopic intricacy and magnitude.

Neither was I fantastic with the camera myself.

But what I have enjoyed doing is being a sort of DJ with mine and other people's photographs and textures and turning them into hybrid stories. Stories of love and death and heat and sadness. Glimpses of myster, holocaust and beauty. Imagination full on display, borrowing from the world, from my own clumsy lightboxes and from the fabrics and sun-captures of others (always with their permission).

By the time I'm done, you would hardly recognize the original artists/photographer's contributions. Like a Tagger I used to watch paint dozens of layer of cartoon and impression, bikini and alien all on a patch of sidewalk, until finally he had created a penguine playing a song for a hound dog on crooked piano with large teeth, such is the work with light and color and shadow I do with photography.

For example, not that you'll find these things, but in the image above there are a handful of bonfires in windows, lonely horses and livestock, and finally a very large actually haunted house somewhere in England.

I play with all these things until I've woven a little myster, told a little story, added just enough intrigue, outline and hue to grab someone's imagination switch.

So . . . am I photographer. Sure by literal definition. But not as good as the ones who hunt the world themselves to make the sun shine on their subject in just the way of their choosing or delight. But I do honor them by weaving their tales into grander and more controverted tapestries.

Hopefully you like playing on such playgrounds with me.

The one above I call "Beacher's Zoo".

What name would you give it? I'd love to hear what your imagination whispers to you.

Here is another one I recently created. I call it "Snow Fort". This one is playful. I love the colors. Though many who are Color Blind might have problem picking up on its thematic hues.

This one started as a Ski resort. Perhaps you can still make out the chair lifts. Obviously I added a Winter Miller to the mix. There is also a boy I have used numerous times before who is getting ready to sled down a teetotterish hill.

I love moments of play. I love the vibrance and pattern inside this one. I built it with lumber piles to add to the idea of a retreat "fort". A place to dream and cavort, snuggle and plan. Who can't recall those days of playing in the "white stuff" when we were young?

Again, I'd love to hear what you the viewer see inside, and what you would call it if something other than the title I've given.

Each of us has a writer inside, just like each of us has an artist. I'm not suggesting all are equally gifted, but rather that there's something inside waiting to spread it's wings if you'll gather up the courage and light-heartedness required to give it vent.