Hi!

I’m Angel. A photographer, among other things, naturally, such as a father, husband, son, brother, etc., based in the Hudson Valley, New York.

My photography captures and expresses all that I am and that I love, and that which brings me joy. The act of making photographs, brings me immense gratification. Creating something that didn’t exist before and will never exist again as it was in that moment excites me. Freezing a sliver of time with care regarding subject, composition, lighting, tone, and texture, as well as minding the technical aspects of exposure and allowing the instinctive nature of artistic expression to flow through me, urges me to raise the viewfinder to my eye and press the shutter button. Releasing the shutter on my subject is something I’m compelled to do. Whether the goal is to record my connection with another person, capture a facet of their personality in an image, convey a feeling, an idea, or simply to photograph the pure beauty of a scene in a particular light, photography fulfills a deep-seated desire in me to connect and communicate.

My meditations are being out in the world, breathing in the fresh air in nature, steeping in the vista of a breathtaking landscape, roving around a metropolis, or driving along bucolic country roads with my camera as my companion.

In my youth, I tried many different mediums of artistic expression. It started with drawing. In grade school, I had a friend that drew intricate worlds on a single sheet of notebook paper. That sparked my interest in drawing, and while I never created anything like the detailed scenes and creatures he was able to put on paper, I did develop a decent enough ability to draw superheroes and caricatures.

In high school, I attended every art class I could get myself into. Painting and drawing, architecture, advertising and design, pottery and sculpture, and photography. I enjoyed each to varying degrees, but only one discipline stuck. Bet you can guess which!

I learned black and white film photography and dark room film development. I enjoyed the tactility of using the camera. adjusting its dials and lens aperture to achieve a proper exposure, and I particularly liked composing images. From early on, people who saw my photos would often say things like “you have a great eye for photography.” which helped my confidence. My photography teacher also liked my work and encouraged me to pursue it outside of school. I didn’t. At least not fresh out of high school. My situation at that time dictated that I go right into the workforce, so all my energy and focus was on earning money to support myself, paying rent and other bills, and, of course, hanging out.

It wasn’t until the early 2000s that I started taking photographs again, only then with a digital point-and-shoot style camera instead of film. It wasn’t long before I began receiving similar compliments from people who saw my shots that I had heard about my black-and-white film images in school. The encouragement was appreciated, but it also assured me that photography is my artistic medium.

I was into photography even before I knew I was into photography. Before I was entrenched in my own photography journey, Images from some of the great photographers had already left an indelible mark on me on a conscious and subconscious level. I don’t remember when or how old I was when I first saw what I would later learn was Helmut Newton’s "Le Smoking," for French Vogue, or Richard Avedon’s Calvin Klein ads, or “Dovima with elephants”, or Peter Lindbergh’s photographs that helped invent the “super model”. Nor do I recall when I initially saw Yosemite National Park through Ansel Adams’ lens, but their photos and many others’ stuck with me in some deeply meaningful way. When I first laid eyes on their work, I had no idea who the artists behind the cameras were. I only knew that I loved the images. At the time I didn’t even fully understand exactly what it was about those photos and so many others that impacted me so strongly. I wasn’t yet aware of all the substantive, and technical elements that comprised their great photographs, even though I felt it intrinsically somewhere inside me when I viewed them. Of course, as I followed my own photographic path, I came to learn their names, and studied them, their work, and techniques, and respective styles. I searched for and viewed as much of their work as possible to soak it all in. In my late high school years, I tore images I liked out of magazines and hung them on my living room walls in artistic arrangements so that I’d see them every day.

Once back into photography, I was all in. I studied the greats and I explored new techniques such as flash photography, long exposures, high contrast black and white, and using new angles literally and figuratively. I tried different genres of photography, too, from portraiture to landscapes to street photography and anything else that piqued my interest in some way. All the while building my own photographic approach, literacy, and vocabulary.

As the years came, and went, I continued to refine my eye and voice with constant practice of skills and methods I formulated myself throughout the process, and that I learned from other sources, and through that work, I also generated my own photography philosophy.

To the greatest extent possible, when I’m engaging in my own photographic process, I try to let go of all photography influences so that my work is truly my own. Not easy, as all I’ve seen and learned in the countless hours studying, and of course, looking at who knows how many photographs over so many years inevitably seeps in through the hairline cracks of my psyche, but I feel it’s of critical importance to make photos my own way. To approach the endeavor from an almost innocent, childlike way and purity. To be as free of the corruption, or persuasion that can occur from outside interference as possible. To that end, I’m not quite as keen on learning the technical side of “how” other photographers go about creating their images as I am in grasping their “why”. Understanding Their motivations, sources of inspiration, and drive is of much more value to me.

Also, I am never in competition with any other photographers. If anything, I’m in competition with myself.

I was recently out shooting with my cousin, Joe, who is an accomplished Artist in multiple mediums, including painting, and photography. During one of our usual, thoughtful conversations on all things photography, I commented that almost without exception, when I meet another photographer, they only want to talk about themselves and their photos. They very rarely ask about any aspect of my work. Joe responded to that comment that it’s because most photographers are competitive. I don’t understand any form of competition in art making. I’m always interested in seeing and hearing about other people’s art and make a point to ask them about it. Their work, whether or not it resonates with me, has no bearing on me or my photography in any competitive way. I shoot for me and never in any spirit of competition with anyone else or their portfolio. I photograph solely to satisfy my innate need to create, connect, and communicate. I respond to my subject or environment in the moment, and you see some of the results here on my website.

Don’t get me wrong, I hope you and as many people as possible like my work too, but that isn’t what drives me to create, ultimately.

I create because I exist.