Artist Statement - R.F.D.S

A picture paints a thousand words, and a photograph does something similar. To me a the work of an artist can be something with a completely different meaning to the person viewing the work. The way the shapes are made, the way the lighting is set, what’s going on in front of the lens, that’s the beauty the photographer captures with a single “click”. Along with combining the skills of being a great photo taker, you must have a creative imagination. In my work I enjoy leaving people with curiosity about what is trying to be interpreted or told. This leaves viewers to conjure up a story for the image, and let their imaginations go wild.

My photos usually consist of people, places, shapes and happenings. I enjoy the natural beauty of a person’s body and how it flows when it knows they are not being photographed. A natural image to me in remarkable, it can capture peoples emotions and then interpreted through their body language. When looking for things to photograph my favorite setting is Downtown. The liveliness of the people and the feeling of always being rushed brings excitement to me. The building and the streets also create their natural geometric shapes. The very top of a building can look like a square, but from an angle and by adding another image in the photo can create art. I have found that the hardest part of photography is not what to capture, but how to capture it. There are countless people and places that you can photograph, but to make them truly unique is what I intend on doing.

To give an emotion of the image you have to give it a mood. Having people give their own ideas for my work is what I enjoy, but for their imaginations to run wild I have to create a mood set, this can be done by using tools. They allow me to create a vivid picture with a lot going on just by adding saturation, or make a darker subtle image by desaturating something. I tend to work with the contrast and exposure of my photos; I have found that by adding or taking away both of these can change the meaning of an image. Example might be that I have taken a picture of people just leaving the office from work, by using my tools I could make the tone be upset maybe from a bad day, or even happy from getting off work. The possibilities are endless, I usually decide on how I was feeling that day, and what works best with my work.


The work I enjoy is more of the modern art side of photography, but my ideas were inspired by the photos of Alfred Steiglitz. In his work he did not take pictures of anything, but instead everything. His work varied from candid photos, to photos of nature and to my favorite’s downtown buildings. I mimic his style of variation and trying new things. The one thing I have not done in my work that he did a lot of was up close photos of people. He had a knack for capturing the image of a person along with the emotion, giving “us” (the viewer) the ability to let our imagination roam. One day I hope to have at least one my photos becoming famous, so people can wonder and maybe even be inspired.

The 15 Best Street photo's

To choose my 15 best photographs I carefully looked through the various images I had. It was difficult since none of them really revolved around one theme. So I chose the images that somewhat had similarity's between them. The theme is day & night change, my photos go in an order of day, starting from morning, to mid-day and then night time. Most are taken in my favorite setting of Downtown, along with some take around my neighborhood. Enjoy!