"AI Eating n.20 (Molars)" Painting

As a New York fashion photographer and magazine publisher I spent my earliest years focusing on direct and accurate depictions of models and apparel. Garment industry customers wanted me to show the key details of the garments accurately and make everything look as conventionally attractive as possible. I produced many millions of images over three decades under these conventions.

But few of the objects I started to make in the mid 1990’s used a camera in an opposite manner, to search for something unpredictable. I photograph the reflections ­­— in distorted mirrored surfaces — of humans or found items. This is a mechanical process, images of which I see, and choose to capture or not, as they appear in the camera viewfinder. This tool twists the results off into unpredictable and unexpected directions. It is not provided to me by AI.

In one recent series, Assassins, I start with early found photographs of killers (before they kill), the reflections of which I then photograph ­­— in a distorted mirrored surface. The results explore whether there was something there, back then, to suggest future behavior.

For “Lance n.5” I used the same process to examine the cover of Texas Monthly from July 2001, which included an heroic photo of a grinning Lance Armstrong by David LaChapelle. The cover heralded the lead article in which Armstrong claimed he was not using performance-enhancing drugs. Many years later, on July 17, 2013, the cyclist admitted that he had, indeed, been using banned drugs since late spring of 1995.

A new series, AI Eating, explores the impact of Artificial Intelligence on humans by combining original photograph archivaly printed on canvas, with collaged, hand cut and painted pieces of canvas. Comments from various AI personalities are included on printed and painted strips.

Yawn Research starts with humans yawning ­­— reflections of which I have been able to catch at random, also photographed in distorted mirrored surfaces. I then combine the resultant images with printed comments or research about yawns from various researchers or pundits.

Pix vs. Stix, a series dating from the pandemic, combines painted stick figures of humans with photographs of humans ­­— reflections of which I photographed in distorted mirrored surfaces, and archivaly printed on canvas. The series explores the competition, for me, between photographic pixels and the output of paint brushes.

I enjoy using my process to do commissioned portraits.