Badlands, 1984

The Tourists

In the spirit of “street photographers” like Garry Winogrand, Lee Friendlander or Vivian Maier, the Tourists Portfolio focuses on the altered landscape of the domestic traveler. Using a 35 mm camera with a wide-angle lens, and working quickly and instinctively, I would slip into the midst of my subjects in their natural environment. Here is a world sprung akimbo; a world inhabited by a maelstrom of eager adventures, decked in deafening attire and shrouded with the trappings of the seasoned wanderer; a world that is infiltrated at an arm’s length, grabbing at fleeting images while passing through their milieu until they are stopped by the slap of the camera shutter and frozen forever on celluloid. Like snatched wedges of life reflected from a fun-house mirror, the visual complexion of these photographs mutates with manipulative coloration.