My abstract ima

 Palouse Country Canvas: Unspeakable Beauty

Landscape photographers descend upon the Palouse Country in southeast Washington State from all over the world to capture its magic, its beauty, quite unlike any other.

Windblown soils have long ago piled up in rolling waves of huge dunes 50 to 200 feet high, very much resembling a stormy sea.

Long, slowly rising slopes of very fertile “Loess” topsoil, in rounded hills, countless curving lines on all sides, swales, whirls and swirls, draws, saddles, ridges, twisting benches, crests, troughs, horseshoe basins, and amphitheaters shape this intricate, undulating terrain, unique to the Palouse Country.

To the lens-based artist, the Palouse Country canvas depicts panoramic dryland wheat fields (the Tuscany of America) under constantly changing conditions depending on the season of the year, the current weather, crop preparation and harvesting cycles. It is an endless expanse of hills covered by endless fields of wheat, one of the most productive farming districts in the world.

Man, and his farm machinery, perhaps unknowingly, add brushstrokes to nature’s canvas.  Textures, patterns, curves, lines, and forms take shape for the poet and the artist, so functional and so unspeakably beautiful.

Why is the imagery of the Palouse Country so special to me?

I am thrilled to have the privilege to discover this captivating canvas. Since 2019, my primary goal has been to create original and aesthetically significant photographs.

 I have chosen to follow both Mario Giacomelli’s long view and Man Ray’s close view, my influencers. 

By means of the camera and post processing, this canvas then is transformed into my own fine art, running from conventional landscape photography to the abstract.

My desire is to convey my emotional experience and response to what I see, to what I feel, to what is drawing me to the scene, to the joy I feel when I click the shutter.

To acquire a fleeting glimpse of this intrinsic beauty, before it momentarily disappears with the passage of time, is my own personal harvest from this land of wheat.

ges taken in the Palouse area of southeast Washington State propose a new way to observe landscape photography, devoid of conventional subject matter, replete however with a clear vision of aesthetic detailed form, color and texture, revealing less noticed aspects of the surroundings.  By removing the context and exploring the microcosm itself, I move beyond the limits of realism of representational photography to conceptual interpretation.

The passion and purpose of my photography is to capture a glimpse of this intrinsic beauty, this original, unique art before it disappears as a new season approaches. At any moment on location, I like to convey an emotional response to what I see, to what I feel, to what I am moved by, to what is drawing me into the scene.  My intention then is to capture the particular, to appreciate the peculiar, to acknowledge the astonishing and to illicit an impactful response from you the viewer.

The sweeping landscape of the Palouse in Eastern Washington captivates me because it is filled with never disappointing possibilities: lines, shapes, highlights, shadows, textures, from lush green rolling hills in the summer to the white of snow of the winter etched beneath by the dark fertile top soil. This entire scene is scripted by man’s interventions: plowing, discing, harrowing, seeding and cultivating these dry land crops, then harvesting. Huge tractors and self-elevating combines especially designed for the steep rolling hills become the tools to create the art in the immense wheat, barley, lentil fields.

 I convert this environment into a series of photographic images which speak a visualized language: a new form of beauty, refined, recomposed and retouched. This art is meant to be experienced by you, the viewer, with the same wonderment that captured my mind and heart.  I hope to evoke in you, wonderment of your own.