Boy with Car, 1940's

The Pendant, 1880's

Civil War Era Tintype

From a damaged metal plate

Martha and Mabel, circa 1890

Girl with Kewpie Doll, Tokyo, 1930's

Boy with Book, Selma, Alabama, 1950's

Wagon Child, circa 1920

Tub Shower, circa 1890's

From a Stereoscopic Card

Girl with Bonnet, circa 1890

Woman and Car, 1920's

Girl in Yard, Selma, Alabama, 1950's

Partners, from an 1870's tintype

Girl in the Farmyard with Shadow, 1930's

Man with a Gun, 1950's

Child in the Grass, circa 1900

Woman with Penciled Features, circa 1910

Woman with Chickens, 1920's

Baby on a Blanket, 1930's

Printed on handmade cotton paper

Broken Ambrotype, circa 1860

My Father as a Boy, the Bronx, 1940

(Re)membering

“Photographs are perhaps the most mysterious of all the objects that make up, and thicken, the environment we recognize as modern.” ~Susan Sontag

All of my images are photographs of photographs collected. The subjects and, in most cases, the original photographers are anonymous. I marvel at these curious artifacts, at the immediacy of the stilled faces on their surfaces, and at the enigmas of contexts that swim underneath. In reprinting these portraits, it is my hope that these people who may have long ago passed are remembered; that the dance they accepted with the future may take another turn; and that the flickering fragilities of these antique testaments may speak again.

I create my own negatives by re-photographing the original photographs, with their cracks, bubbles, dirt, and folds. To make my prints, I hand apply silver gelatin photographic emulsion onto Arches cotton watercolor paper, and then expose the new images in the darkroom. Each print is unique, with varying edges, brushstrokes and densities of emulsion.

The 11x14 inch archival silver gelatin prints are toned in sepia