Created by vision, crafted by hand ...
Written comments on Keith's work from collectors and Gallery visitors:
"poetry in light and shadow", "otherworldly", "marvelous", "fantastic!", "magical light", "excellent", "contemplative",
"amazing imagery", "spectacular", "such a celebration of work and play" , "beautiful", "very creative work",
"wonderful", "an inspiration", "thoughtful", "truly enjoyed your art", "great work", "absolutely stunning".
"Your work stands out above the rest and shows an excellent understanding of the principles and techniques of photography"
- Chuck Delaney, Dean, New York Institute of Photography.
Written comments on Keith's work from collectors and Gallery visitors:
"poetry in light and shadow", "otherworldly", "marvelous", "fantastic!", "magical light", "excellent", "contemplative",
"amazing imagery", "spectacular", "such a celebration of work and play" , "beautiful", "very creative work",
"wonderful", "an inspiration", "thoughtful", "truly enjoyed your art", "great work", "absolutely stunning".
"Your work stands out above the rest and shows an excellent understanding of the principles and techniques of photography"
- Chuck Delaney, Dean, New York Institute of Photography.
Artist's Statement
Keith enjoys exploring all types of photography but leans towards environmental and transformative photography in serendipitous light. He plays with the subtle nuances of natural and available light, form, line, colour and texture. Using a combination of deep intuition and appreciative inquiry, Keith's photography captures what he sees and feels. Images are created in-camera through mindful composition and adjustments in focal length, shutter speed, aperture and depth-of-field. In that unique and decisive moment, he chooses to open the shutter and allows photons and electrons to do their digital dance inside his little black box. To make an authentic expression of his artistic vision, the raw image is crafted in the digital darkroom using subtle refinements for colour, tone and contrast. A framed and matted fine art print is presented and shared with the viewer in a celebration of the joy of being in the ever-constant present.
One of Keith’s earliest memories as a child growing up in Scotland is borrowing his grandfather’s old Brownie box camera and playing at taking pictures. His family immigrated to Canada and he worked his way through various Kodak Instamatics. Keith bought his first 35mm single lens reflex camera, a second-hand Asahi Pentax, while studying design and learned the fine art of creating and developing black and white photographs. Keith worked extensively with colour slides but eventually switched to digital and now shoots with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with a Canon EOS 40D backup and Canon G12 as a carry-around. Lenses of preference include Canon 24-105mm, 17mm, 70-200mm, 100mm and 50mm. Although he favours hand-held, Keith may use a Manfrotto tripod and ballhead or a Sherpa monopod when needed. He uses Canon Speedlites flash units on location and Bowens Gemini monolights in his studio. He prints on professional caliber Epson Pro 7900 and Epson Stylus Photo R2880 inkjet printers using archival paper and pigment inks guaranteed for 100 years.
Keith is driven by his emotional guidance system and inspired by the images and words of the great masters. His early photographic influences came from the modernist school in the pictorial work of Alfred Stieglitz and his "exploration of the familiar while documenting eternal relationships". Also from Minor White’s “conversations with light” and the formalist work of Ansel Adams' "act of photography bringing together all of the books I've ever read, the films seen, the music heard and all the people ever loved". In opening up his photographic horizons, Keith is grateful to John MacQuade for sharing his Shambhala Buddhist contemplative approach to photography embracing Miksang's "good eye", "flash perception" and "dot in space". Courtney Milne's work encouraged him to see with new eyes in order to reveal the mystery, not to solve it. He learned from Freeman Patterson's teaching that art precedes consciousness and it sometimes takes five years to fully recognize the creative value of captured images. Many thanks to Eric Boutillier Brown for his constructive critique, friendly useful advice on quality control and masterful instruction on the creative and technical aspects of photography. The community of photographers at ViewPoint Gallery of Contemporary Photography provided a valuable and inspiring forum for the sharing, enjoyment and exchange of knowledge, skills and experience.
In 2012 Keith took an interest in high-speed photography pioneered by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1851, A.M. Worthington in 1908 and Harold Edgerton in the 1930s. The techniques were further developed in recent years for liquids by others, most notably Martin Waugh, Markus Reugels, Corrie White and Brian Mumford. The sculptural forms and flow of fluids in motion and collision are amazing to behold but the details are very difficult to see with the naked human eye without the techniques of high-speed photography to stop the action. This transient and ephemeral natural art form can only be caught in time slices of 1/20,000 of a second with high-speed flashes. The sculptural forms created are an intentional collaboration between the artist and the liquid - a synchronicity of material, camera, eye, mind, heart and spirit. Infinite possibilities are possible by playing with the variables of type, viscosity and colour of liquid, drop size, number of drops, drop rate and lighting. A solo exhibition of Keith's exploratory work in "Droplology: Liquid Art Photography" showed at ViewPoint Gallery in August 2013 and was published in a photobook of the same title.
As he developed as an artist, Keith found inspiration in the surreal, photomontage work of Jerry Uelsmann and John Paul Caponigro. Photography is renown for capturing the "decisive moment" that appears to freeze the action at the right time and in the right place in one image. Photographic images can also bend time and warp space by presenting multiple images taken at different times and different locations. The techniques of multiple exposure, photomontage, stitching and compositing allow for the superimposition of a number of images to create a new image that only previously existed in the imagination of the artist. Visions, dreams and whims can be recreated, explored and shared in detail. Keith's current work series in Figmentia Imaginationis and Phantoms of the Forest are explorations in this genre.
Other words of wisdom and inspiration:
Innocence of eye has a quality of its own. It means to see as a child sees, with freshness and acknowledgement of the wonder.
It also means to see as an adult sees who has gone full circle and once again sees as a child - with freshness and an ever deeper
sense of wonder ... Minor White
I've gone to find myself, if I get back before I return, keep me here! ... Jack Welpott
Look at it not for what it is, but for what else it is ... Minor White
The camera looks both ways ... Freeman Patterson
There is a relationship between the eye and the heart, with one eye that is closed we look within,
with the other eye that is open, one looks without ... Henri Cartier Bresson
One of Keith’s earliest memories as a child growing up in Scotland is borrowing his grandfather’s old Brownie box camera and playing at taking pictures. His family immigrated to Canada and he worked his way through various Kodak Instamatics. Keith bought his first 35mm single lens reflex camera, a second-hand Asahi Pentax, while studying design and learned the fine art of creating and developing black and white photographs. Keith worked extensively with colour slides but eventually switched to digital and now shoots with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with a Canon EOS 40D backup and Canon G12 as a carry-around. Lenses of preference include Canon 24-105mm, 17mm, 70-200mm, 100mm and 50mm. Although he favours hand-held, Keith may use a Manfrotto tripod and ballhead or a Sherpa monopod when needed. He uses Canon Speedlites flash units on location and Bowens Gemini monolights in his studio. He prints on professional caliber Epson Pro 7900 and Epson Stylus Photo R2880 inkjet printers using archival paper and pigment inks guaranteed for 100 years.
Keith is driven by his emotional guidance system and inspired by the images and words of the great masters. His early photographic influences came from the modernist school in the pictorial work of Alfred Stieglitz and his "exploration of the familiar while documenting eternal relationships". Also from Minor White’s “conversations with light” and the formalist work of Ansel Adams' "act of photography bringing together all of the books I've ever read, the films seen, the music heard and all the people ever loved". In opening up his photographic horizons, Keith is grateful to John MacQuade for sharing his Shambhala Buddhist contemplative approach to photography embracing Miksang's "good eye", "flash perception" and "dot in space". Courtney Milne's work encouraged him to see with new eyes in order to reveal the mystery, not to solve it. He learned from Freeman Patterson's teaching that art precedes consciousness and it sometimes takes five years to fully recognize the creative value of captured images. Many thanks to Eric Boutillier Brown for his constructive critique, friendly useful advice on quality control and masterful instruction on the creative and technical aspects of photography. The community of photographers at ViewPoint Gallery of Contemporary Photography provided a valuable and inspiring forum for the sharing, enjoyment and exchange of knowledge, skills and experience.
In 2012 Keith took an interest in high-speed photography pioneered by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1851, A.M. Worthington in 1908 and Harold Edgerton in the 1930s. The techniques were further developed in recent years for liquids by others, most notably Martin Waugh, Markus Reugels, Corrie White and Brian Mumford. The sculptural forms and flow of fluids in motion and collision are amazing to behold but the details are very difficult to see with the naked human eye without the techniques of high-speed photography to stop the action. This transient and ephemeral natural art form can only be caught in time slices of 1/20,000 of a second with high-speed flashes. The sculptural forms created are an intentional collaboration between the artist and the liquid - a synchronicity of material, camera, eye, mind, heart and spirit. Infinite possibilities are possible by playing with the variables of type, viscosity and colour of liquid, drop size, number of drops, drop rate and lighting. A solo exhibition of Keith's exploratory work in "Droplology: Liquid Art Photography" showed at ViewPoint Gallery in August 2013 and was published in a photobook of the same title.
As he developed as an artist, Keith found inspiration in the surreal, photomontage work of Jerry Uelsmann and John Paul Caponigro. Photography is renown for capturing the "decisive moment" that appears to freeze the action at the right time and in the right place in one image. Photographic images can also bend time and warp space by presenting multiple images taken at different times and different locations. The techniques of multiple exposure, photomontage, stitching and compositing allow for the superimposition of a number of images to create a new image that only previously existed in the imagination of the artist. Visions, dreams and whims can be recreated, explored and shared in detail. Keith's current work series in Figmentia Imaginationis and Phantoms of the Forest are explorations in this genre.
Other words of wisdom and inspiration:
Innocence of eye has a quality of its own. It means to see as a child sees, with freshness and acknowledgement of the wonder.
It also means to see as an adult sees who has gone full circle and once again sees as a child - with freshness and an ever deeper
sense of wonder ... Minor White
I've gone to find myself, if I get back before I return, keep me here! ... Jack Welpott
Look at it not for what it is, but for what else it is ... Minor White
The camera looks both ways ... Freeman Patterson
There is a relationship between the eye and the heart, with one eye that is closed we look within,
with the other eye that is open, one looks without ... Henri Cartier Bresson