About
Born in Montclair, NJ in 1964 to a family heavily interested in education, I spent my formidable years summering in Maine. I believe it was here that I gained my appreciation of light, shadow and shapes and what the Japanese term Wabi-Sabi, loosely described as beauty in decay and the appreciation of the rustic.
I graduated high school in 1982 and then Southampton college - LIU in 1986, where I studied Marine Biology. After leaving LIU I worked for Rockefeller University in New York City in the laboratory of Dr. Bruce Merrifield studying the fundamentals of protein folding. I spent time building protein structure with an Evans & Sutherland graphics workstation. I then moved to Merck & Co in West Point, Pa in 1990. At Merck I worked in analytical biochemistry and then Automated High Throughput Screening. In 2004 I left Merck to work for Bristol, Myers & Squibb in Lawrenceville, NJ where I integrate and program robotic bio assay systems for Lead Evaluation and compound optimization.
My first camera was an Argus C3 that my father had and used extensively in Europe during his military tour there in the 1950s. A totally manual, beautiful camera that took magnificent photographs. I shot primarily slide film. Then in 1982 I was given an Olympus OM-10. The Olympus had some semi automatic functions, but again, I shot mostly in manual mode. With these two cameras I shot mainly Kodak Tri-X, Kodachrome and Ektachrome films. I currently shoot with a Nikon D80 and a FujiFilm X-10. This year I plan on returning to the dark room. I have just purchased a Yashica 44LM.
My subjects are mainly landscapes, but I trend toward the abstract in the style of Edward Weston, Edward Steichen, Eugene Atget and Josef Sudek. I look for the play of light against shapes, the shapes created by shadow. At the end of the day my desire is chasing the aesthetic. Professionally, I work in a highly technical field, and as such I use the left brain for the majority of my day. I think that a balance is achieved through photography because it helps me to use the right brain, and in doing so both sides perform better. Hopefully this shows in my photographs.
gk.
2013