Visual Storytelling Awards Submission

I was introduced to Jersey City Welding, by a friend who’s sculptures were being fabricated there. It was a place that I went to visually explore for a couple of years whenever I had some down time from my commercial assignments. I would bring my Hasselblad, a tripod and two strobe heads. Sometimes natural light would dictate an idea, at other times I would use my strobes There would be days when I could find quite a few things to photograph and other days nothing at all, no matter how hard I looked. It wasn’t till the beginning of my second year that I began to realize that it wasn’t the environment per se that inspired me to photograph, but the way I was seeing and relating to the environment. Was I looking at the environment as clichés or metaphors, was I attracted to this place because somehow I thought it would spiritually bring me closer to my father who as a tool and dye maker? My perspective changed somewhat and I began to see photographs of objects that I had passed over numerous times and did not think they had been worth the effort to photograph. One day while I was photographing a segment of a steel curving machine, one of the workers who I had known for awhile came over to me and asked, "Is this what you call art?" I was taken aback by the question and said, “Some people might consider this art.” “ Do you make a living doing this?” he continued. “No, not yet.” I replied.