Thirty five years of seeking the highlight.
Thirty five years of self portraits.
Visual questions and verbal images.
Always asking Why?

"How does a visual person define his life and work in words?”
The soul of the artist is held in the negatives, every shot is a self portrait.” -PJC

Why?
I have spent the last year or maybe more reflecting on my work over the thirty or so years I have been shooting. It is, at times, surprising and then not surprising at all that the actual images over the last years have been reflections. Why? I will let you know when I am sure.

As a young artist there is so much new information to learn and teachers to please. Accepting that an image is cool is enough to make you strive to create more. There is no “Why”, just on to the next assignment. At what point do you become an artist? How does one define the soul of an artist? My work, I hope, stimulates thought. I hope that my writing does also. I try not so much to offer answers, but to offer questions. Why? The more often you ask Why, the more you will force yourself to see an array of solutions, not just what is convenient or what provides the most instant gratification. The big picture isn't seen very much, but as an artist I take more time to see beyond the convenient. Marketing is about convenience.

There are lots of conversations on the internet, coffeehouses and bars about the newest equipment. "If I just had this new tool I'd take better photos." Why? Because it says so in the ad. When I was in elementary school {late 50s} we took a class trip to a nuclear power plant. We were told that by the time we were our parent’s age that electricity would be almost free. So what does this have to do with Photographic Art? The most important tool you have is your mind and the more you allow it to ask why the better it will work.

The soul of an artist is defined by the questions he asks. Have the courage to ask “Why”? To see within oneself. Without questions there won't be answers.
© Peter J. Crowley January 2, 2003

The roll of the photographer is that of a voyeur, never reaching his subject's soul, But for brief instances when the subject's heart is offered, only to be interpreted and re-created with a cross breeding of the image makers own soul.
January 22, 2001 © Peter J. Crowley
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