string series · background · connections series
· Where is the line between technology & image?
· What is the subject?
· What is the role of light, shadow & background?
· How do we see, focus, and process input?
· How do we perceive insight & beauty or lie & illusion?
Reducing the range of focus led to questioning how subject and background are defined as well as the exploration of the other questions above.

To do this a digital camera was attached to the end of a sidearm with the lens pointing down the length of the sidearm. A thin nylon string was stretched from the far end of the two foot sidearm up over the top of the camera and attached to the base of the camera mount. A close-up lens was used in front of a 200mm lens which was manually focused as close as possible.

In previous series digital technology helped to bring out detail and texture. In this series they are deliberately avoided. Close focus and, for some images, deliberate camera movement during exposures kept the background soft. Soft out of focus elements formed in the background and float within the frame.

The gradual transition between colors pushes the limits of the digital equipment used and reveals a texture not actually in the scene. The choice was made not to use software applications specially made to remove this digital artifact. For this series the noise, much like the grain of high speed film, lets us feel a slight sense of the technology. This series was completed in September 2006.