Hi, Nick-the-New-Guy here. MPJ Class of 2000. It is very cool to have Jim's web site to hook everyone together. So thanks Jim and to all who have sent stuff in to support it. I really enjoy talking with others -- civilians or military -- about photography. So if you have something you want to talk about, don't hesitate to send an eMail my way. I want to try something a bit unconventional with this artist statement. Rather than give you boring background and biography-type stuff about myself, I think there may be some who may appreciate some of the abstract ideas I have about my own style and motivation.

     For those with literal minds, you may not find any utility here because I'm going to get a little funky and have some fun with this. 

     Photography is my visual nutrition. I can only go so long until I feel a crushing need to go out and make a nice picture or two, a photographic meal if you will. 

     I like to compare my urge to make pictures to snakes, specifically, to the eating habits of snakes. 

     You may or may not know this, but snakes typically don't eat every day.. They eat when they are hungry, twice a week if they are really hungry and food is plentiful. If a big 'ole meal presents itself, the snake will not hesitate to take it. If the snake gobbles up a large meal, it may not eat for a few weeks while it digests the kill. Perhaps a good example would be a python swallowing a good-sized pig. 

     So for me, I don't feel the burning desire to hunt down a good picture every day. On average, the itch to make a good picture comes to me strong about once per week, sometimes more, sometimes less. If I bring back a dynamite shot that really sings, it may take a few weeks before I feel visually hungry again. I must digest it.

I'm not saying I can't go out and find nice pictures every day. What I'm talking about is more of an intangible inner urge to make good pictures; the kind of urge that comes and goes on its own without prompt. I just don't get that visual hunger pain on a daily basis. But when it comes, it's like an infection. I am driven to an image.

     As you read this, you may be thinking, "Wow. Matt is a complete numbskull. He's advertising to the world that he'd never cut it at a daily." There could be some truth in that. But honestly, I just don't feel good when I eat without being hungry. I hope that makes sense on some level.   

     Finding photos, I believe, is also similar to a snake's quest for its next meal. Snakes will go just about anywhere in search of food, up a tree, across a river, down into a cave, inside a farmer's barn, and even under water in the ocean. Id go to those places too if that's where I thought my next picture waited.

     Once a snake has cornered its prey for this scenario let's say a constricting king snake and a big fat juicy rat ö it quickly strikes and wraps its coils around tightly. 

     When I'm looking through the lens and am really feeling the photograph "going off" in the frame, I imagine that's how a snake might feel when it's got the rat all wrapped up. 

I really dig that feeling. Not squeezing and tasting rat fur, but the excellent mental buzz that happens when working a scene and watching nice things happen through the lens. 

     I believe photography is mostly about feeling. And I don't believe you can force feeling. There are, however, ways to increase the odds of finding "feeling" in photographs. I try to do it by reading a lot of photographs, studying them.

     For example, when I bring home a stack of photo books from the library, I read the photos. Not the text blocks alongside the photos or the captions, but the pictures themselves. I look hard to absorb the feeling of a particular photo that is moving me in some way. Then I read the photo to gain insight and understanding to why the photo made me feel something. I try to understand what elements are giving the photo the power to move me.

     I try to imagine what lens the photographer used, the time of day, angle, f-stop, and shutter speed, etc. I also wonder what the person or people in the frame are like on a human level. Then I try to file the feelings about the images in my visual file cabinet. 

     When going out to make an image, I usually go for a certain feeling. Often, the feeling will present itself like a flashback to scene I've seen before. Sometimes it's just my own state of mind that I tap into and use to translate into something visual inside the lens.

Of course each scene and circumstance will be different, but the feeling often will be very similar.   

     Finding good images, for me, is about discovering and uncovering feeling with a visual method. When I get hungry for a particular feeling, I can't rest until I've eaten. Sssssssssss.

Chow down!

Photojournalist 

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