2024

portraits

San Francisco Bay Area

2011 - 2012

manhole covers

Urbana, Illinois

27 May 2012

Around the University of Illinois, I noticed some very interesting covers to underground maintenance holes. I thought they deserved some artistic documentation.

silver nitrate dissolved in polymer solution

Urbana, Illinois

2011

In my first year at grad school, I naively thought that I could create an electrically conductive photocurable polymer if I dissolved silver (in the form of silve nitrate, AgNO₃) into polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA).

This did not work. Instead of staying dissolved, the silver nitrate formed beautiful (but not electrically conductive) crystals.

2009 - 2010

Arizona State architecture

Tempe, Arizona

18 & 23 October 2009

When I went off to college my parents bought me my first digital SLR camera (a Nikon D40).

I would take it around campus and search for interesting patterns, shapes and shadows.

rutilated quartz

Tempe, Arizona

20 November 2009

I bought a set of extension tubes so I could use my kit lens to explore miniature worlds.

I got this piece of rutilated quartz from a vendor on campus. I used colored lights to create aesthetic atmospheres within the rutile spikes.

aluminum foil

Tempe, Arizona

18 & 20 October 2009

I was curious if I could create the illusion of a natural landscape—like water or terrain—with some readily available supplies: three lamps, colored sheets of plastic and aluminum foil.

I found that crumpled-then-uncrumpled foil looks surprisingly like the night sky when it's backlit.

fluorite

Tempe, Arizona

20 September 2009

This piece of fluorite is a small rock with big views. Colored lights expose and contrast the crystal's structure and its defects.

The surface is interesting enough with facets and steps and cracks, but there's even more inside. Fluid inclusions look like (and essentially are) bubbles. Even smaller defects appear as cloudiness arranged in strata parallel to the facets.

neodymium magnets

Tempe, Arizona

2 & 18 September 2009

The geometric arrangements that these neodynium magnets (3/16" diameter) form are quite photogenic.

beach glass

Akron, Ohio

11 January 2010

The subjects of these photos are of a collection of ocean-worn glass fragments I found washed up on the beach of Oahu, Hawaii.

Back home in Ohio, I put pieces of the beach glass in between two polarizing filters (repurposed 3D glasses) each oriented 90 degrees relative to the other. Along this axis, there is a light source in the back opposite the camera.

The cross polarized filters emphasize aspects (like defects or stress concentration) of the glass that effect the local refractive index, making them appear lighter than the surrounding area.

hot air balloons

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

9 & 10 July 2010

While visiting my aunt in Colorado, I visited a nearby hot air balloon festival, I photographed these colorful floating orbs.

2004 - 2006

still lifes

Akron, Ohio

2004 - 2006

In high school explored black-and white film and color digital photography.

I found myself drawn very much to textures and shadows as major parts of the composition.

moving lifes

Akron, Ohio

2004 - 2006

I didn't take many photographs of people, other than maybe myself. Mostly because I was pretty shy at the time.

My favorite photo of the time was this candidly-posed picture of two kids who asked me to take their photo when they saw me taking pictures of the school building.