This body of work, photographs which I initiated, began in 1970. Images made primarily in 4x5 or 8x10 inch film, my work meanders back and forth between “conceptual” photographs for which the subject matter is ideas about the medium of photography, and “pictorial” work which is about the subject matter in front of the camera.

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Later on the two are merged in the “Big People”; the Indians, Coal Miners and a number of the Painted Indians in the Collaboration, which are full-length, life-size portraits. There are two concepts indigenous to photography to which they adhere: Each frame represents one “slice of time” – only one shot is taken for each frame, including the face, and each frame is shot life-size or 1:1 on the film so the images are literally the same size as the subject matter. This is done because still photography is a slice of time, hence only one slice is shot, and photography is a literal medium so shooting 1:1 is literally the same as the subject.