I grew up in a small town but it was near New York City. My father worked in “the city” and one of my clearest early childhood memories is going there with him and being in the subway and at the Empire State Building where he worked. I of course had never seen so many people -- many of whom looked different from me, which was never true in my hometown. I was fascinated by the buildings; they were huge and beautiful and I wondered what went on in them.
So began my lifelong attraction to the city. As an adult, key elements remain exhilarating to me: the noise, the numbers and motion of so many people encapsulated in their own lives perhaps unaware of their surroundings, and the buildings.
When I became a serious photographer thirty years ago, there was no doubt what my subject would be. I quickly realized that people themselves would not be my subject, but rather the places they lived and worked. I was increasingly drawn to photograph places most people would consider worn or abandoned. But I found beauty in the neglected. I would always ponder the lives that had been lived in these places; the aura of people who had lived there was powerful for me.
Recently, I was at a subway stop and saw some markings on the wall. I responded emotionally to an abstract image I saw there. This began my work in photographing urban abstracts. I see this work as an extension of documenting the presence of people in the city and how they choose to adorn that environment in unexpected and often unobtrusive ways.
