As a longtime Florida resident, I've explored my award-winning vision of photography since 1979. My images combine traditional photography using 35mm cameras, cheap plastic 120 and 110 film cameras, digital cameras and scanners (scanography) with computer imaging in the digital era of fine art.

The use of a scanner for digital image capture is commonly referred to as scanography. The scanner becomes a digital camera from which I create my art using found objects such as leaves, fruit, paper, old portraits and other objects. These scanned elements are then composed and manipulated in Photoshop to create the final image.

My sense of color, texture and light pushes my photography and scanography beyond realism through the manipulation of these elements, changing their relationship and creating an altered reality more evocative of dreams or fading memories. These distinct moments gain importance through this visual exploration to create the final image, an image far removed from the original moment of capture.

Basic scanography technique info

I never cared for still life images or photo closeups of pretty flowers but I always liked botanical illustrations so I began to use scanography as a way of creating images that produced the stark simplicity of botanical illustrations in a somewhat surreal environment. The image manipulation and composition give the scanned objects an almost iconic status.

I began to experiment with scanography in 1998. I had a dedicated 35mm film scanner and Photoshop so I took small dried flowers and sandwiched them between sheets of acetate, put them in the film holder and scanned them. The process worked but was limited due to the small size constraints of the scanner. I started using a flatbed scanner a few years later and that has allowed me to use larger objects and experiment with different methods of scanning which produce different results.

I use an Epson Perfection 4990 Photo scanner. Some images are composed directly on the glass of the scanner. For other images I just scan objects with the intention of extracting them from one file and adding the object to a different scan. Materials that I have scanned include paper, bark, flowers, leafs, crushed cans, some liquids, very old photos and more. I always process the files in Photoshop to manipulate colors (I have a background in painting which influences my color decisions) and create the final composition and also add warmth since the scanner always produces the same cold unflattering light with every scan. I often do multiple scans of the same object and combine them in different ways in Photoshop.