I’m an explorer. I look to create a world on the canvas of the ground glass of my camera. As I look around, I let go of my thoughts and get to a place of intuition and feeling. I never know what will catch my eye and resonate within. Whatever object is on my ground glass is like a skeleton. It provides the structure of the world I create. Built upon the structure on the canvas is the quality and direction of the light. The shapes, textures, and patterns draw me into my ground glass world surrounded by four walls. I work on my canvas, making small adjustments, getting everything just right. What to include? What to leave out? At some point, it feels right and I make the exposure.

Back in my studio I again let go of my thoughts and go to a place of intuition and feeling as I begin working with the slide or negative. I now have my canvas world to work and play in. What do I want to emphasize? What is less important? Changing the black and white tones and raising or lowering contrast in different parts of the canvas, I refine the world I am creating. Some changes are drastic; others are minor. Sometimes the changes just flow easily and quickly. Other times, it is a struggle, with many dead ends. The road is never straight and I must listen carefully to hear where the image wants to go.

I see my image making as an attempt to find and create beauty out of the visual layers in the world. I particularly enjoy looking at ordinary things and by looking more closely and visually extracting a part of what I see, finding a new visual world within the larger “ordinary” world. Often the result is greater simplicity in my subject with one or two elements becoming the theme of the work. When all the elements of the image making process come together, magic happens …

Visit my website at http://bobneiman.com