I fell in love with photography when at 16 years old, when I discovered my fathers old Minolta SRT 101 35mm camera and lens . I taught myself how to use them and I was hooked.
After a short stint at The School of Visual Arts in the mid 80s, I became a freelance assistant and B&W printer for fashion, commercial and still life photographers.
Working in this capacity allowed me to learn from some of the best photographers in the business. I was also blessed with the opportunity to travel the world as a photography assistant.
My own work at that time was mostly B&W fine art nude photography.
In 2010 I opened 'Deep Tanks' with my partner Florence Poulain, a Butoh dancer. Deep Tanks was an underground visual arts and performance arts space and my studio located on Staten Island New York. We were in operation from 2010 to 2016. I began to capture portraits of artist and performers at Deep Tanks. Many of the photos on this site are from this period.
In 2011, I began to photograph people at Lumen, an annual international visual and performance arts event on Staten Island, NY. I wanted to focus on the artists participating in the event on location, but many were too busy to pose. So I shifted my lens to those attending the event. That year i captured 52 portraits.
That year my 'LUMEN ARCHETYPES' series was born, and the 'Deep Tanks Photo Booth' was also born. Every year since then I document Lumen artists and visitors. In 2016, I photographed over 600 people in 6 hours at Lumen.
I no longer use the name 'Deep Tanks Photo Booth' as Deep Tanks Studio is not in operation right now. I have set up my pop up studio in bars, basements, city parks to mud rooms. I have photographed at block parties, weddings, birthdays, drag shows and many other events.
All of the photos from the People Section are from these events as well as The Scream and Jumping sections and most of the Beauties /beasties section.
In 2016 I moved from New York City to Kingston NY. We recently opened a 3000sqft studio called Deep Tanks in the heart of Kingston.
Favorite Quotes-
“God lights the earth with one light” attributed to Albert Watson.
“It’s a camera, not a magic wand” -kristopher johnson