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Apparition is a portfolio of photographs in the ongoing Infinity series, an extended body of blurred imagery that I have been working on since 1997. The photographs in Apparition are meant to capture fleeting “visitations” from the spirit world—visions as they might appear in dreams or heightened states of wakefulness.
Like all the photographs in the Infinity series, Apparition is made using my unique process of photographing collages extremely out of focus. In this case, the source materials are reworked photographs of Roman sculpture, shot with the camera lens set at infinity. This process renders the collages seamless, hovering between the real and the fantastic in a world just beyond our grasp.
The meanings of Apparition radiate in a number of directions. Some of the images are dark, ghoulish visions, yet others are hopeful, spiritual presences. The ghosts of ancient Rome seem particularly appropriate messengers for our time, as we contemplate the fate of our own empire and question whether it will prevail or whether its decline has already begun. The powerful features of these Romans—emperor and soldier alike—bear witness to the eternal truths of the human condition and the precarious balance of hope and fear.
On another level, the work resonates for me personally. I made these images soon after my father died of cancer, yet it was only later that I understood that I had been trying to communicate with him through the medium of light-sensitive materials. This evidence of the power of subconscious motivation was a revelation to me, and the fact that some of the ghostly images actually resembled my father was uncanny. So Apparition is a personal quest to come to grips with the horror of death and the hope of redemption through image making.
At the same time, like the other photographs in the Infinity series, Apparition is meant to be a series of meditative pieces. Extreme de-focusing allows me to merge field and ground, creating abstractions which pulse and vibrate as one gazes at them. My hope is that the viewer might fall into this world of pure color—a world beyond our focus, beyond our ken—and catch a glimpse of the infinite.
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