Spruce Creek
Photographed 1988 - 1992
Spruce Creek is a meandering, tidal, blackwater creek in Central Florida that contains wetlands, savannahs, and palm forests along its route to the Atlantic.
The abstract nature of contrasting darks and lights in the landscape became my focus and has remained so to this day.
Spruce Creek is a meandering, tidal, blackwater creek in Central Florida that contains wetlands, savannahs, and palm forests along its route to the Atlantic. It empties into Rose Bay, the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway, and finally into Ponce DeLeon Inlet before reaching the ocean.
“This was the first major body of work I created for an exhibition. I continued to learn how to make sense of the complicated tangle of foliage in the Florida landscape, a terrain that is as delicate as it is mysterious. The abstract nature of contrasting darks and lights in the landscape became my focus and has remained so to this day.
As far as methodology goes, I took all the photography first—concentrating on capturing what I wanted from the landscape until I felt it was complete. I photographed, developed the film, and printed contact sheets to look at as I worked. Eventually, I culled from the many shots I had taken.
In the darkroom, I spent hours creating an interesting body of work. With this portfolio, I found an optimal way of working: gathering all the raw material before printing.”