Markmaking:England2005

This is my first foray into my Markmaking series. I shot the images in the summer of 2005 while I was in England. I had visited London's tourist spots on my previous visit, and for this trip, I was going to record why I fell in love with the place.

I had purchased my first digital SLR camera before leaving for the UK. The trip was going to give me a chance to figure out why everyone was saying digital cameras were going to be the death of traditional color photography. When I returned home, I calculated I had shot over 800 images in 7 days. I then knew why digital photography would eventually kill the color darkroom.

As I started editing my hoards of digital files, I wasn't sure how I was going to present the images. For the most part, a single image wasn't conveying the fantastic experiences I had while I was shooting. I wanted everyone to understand why England is so beautiful. During that time, I was studying the Dada artists and the idea of photomontage cut through my artist's block (it's just like writer's block). I finally knew how to present this series--multiplicity and juxtaposition.

This process revealed two amazing things to me: first, human-made marks and lines within the images wanted to connect with other images; second, when the photos combined, they created a new, fictional image that was more complex and challenging than the originals. It was the marks I focused on when shooting and seemed the logical title for the series.

These images are how I saw England, and how I see most things; they are fractured pieces that connect and make something even more exciting than apparent facts.

I love imagination. I'm lucky. My parents never squashed mine. (It doesn't hurt that my father is an artist.)