It is difficult to say why an artist creates what he creates.  I suppose if I had to choose one word to explain my work, that word would be "passion". 

Passion is something all artists have in common - passion for an idea, an image, a process.                                                                                        

My passion is for the male figure in its purest form - the nude.

Since the end of the classical age, with the brief exception of the Renaissance in Italy, Western civilization has confined the male nude to the closet, where it has been regarded as somehow illegitimate, scorned as prurient or feared as perverted. 

 Until the late 1960's, in the United States,  the male nude in photography was illegal, and its production a crime punishable by imprisonment.

Only in the last half of the 20th century have artists like Mapplethorpe, Weber, Gorman and George Platt Lynes - just to mention a few of the giants -  brought the male figure out into the light.  It has been a difficult journey, and an uneasy truce even now.

I am often asked, "Why nude?"  Can't you photograph a clothed figure just as well?" 

The answer is "Yes."  And "No."

Of course I can photograph a clothed figure, and often do.  After all, there are many more subjects comfortable clothed than nude.

But to get to the true essence of an individual the layers have to be peeled away, and that includes clothing. 

I have a great deal of experience in portraiture, and I am always fascinated by the difference in a subject clothed and the same subject nude, even if only the face is shown. 

It seems that once there is "nothing to hide", the subject ceases to hide it.  The result is truth.

Unfortunately, truth is not for everyone; it takes a certain strength of character to face it 

But "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." - Keats

Join me here in a search for both.