In the CONVERSATIONAL PORTRAITS I wanted portraits with a more dynamic feel to them; more of a sense of the action stopped someone between its origin and its termination. This is also a good thing for nudes, but because of the figure tradition it is easier with that subject. A portraiture, even a nude one, is harder because the image will be read as one about action rather than character.

STRESSED MOM is from a session with an art school model who had never been to my studio. When we started I asked her to talk to me, and of course she had nothing to say. So I asked her about her day. It turns out she was a single mom who had to drop off her kid at a certain time, make it to work at the art school by a certain time, be back for the kid and do a lot of driving in between. [This recollection of her chronicle does not begin to do it justice.] She talked and I clicked. I asked many subjects thereafter for the same performance but none, other than my self portraits with the help of friend Paul, were so successful. Sadly, she never saw these photographs.

THE DEANO set commemorates the fortieth anniversary of a shirt called the Deano, after Dean Martin who liked his linen showing at the top of the collar and the cuffs. Needless to say, the shirt was not in its prime but when I met Erin, a waifish college student from Niceville, Fl., it was apparent she was meant for the shirt and vice versa.

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