One of the basic tenets of modern photography is that photographs should transform as well as inform and that a photograph that truely "works" should transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Imagine then trying to photograph a landscape filled with sculpture objects that are already extraordinary looking. How do you photograph these works of art without merely creating images that look like a catelogue of the work itself. How do you subvert the artistic intent of the original artists who created these works and reveal something different about these wonderful objects.

For two years I photographed at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton New Jersey. Nationally know sculptor J. Seward Johnson created the facility as a showcase for his and other sculptors' work from around the world. My wife, Susan Van Dongen was doing a story about the gardens and asked me if I would like to tag along one day. One look at the place and I was entranced by what I saw. I immediately started thinking about these amazing works of art in photographic terms. I needed an excuse to get out and make pictures. Here was a real challange to somebody who had spent the past thirty years as a photojournalist mainly photographing people.

I visited Grounds For Sculpture once a week, at different times of the year and in all kinds of weather. I returned to these works over and over, looking at them as the light and landscape changed with the seasons. Gradually I began to see relationships and juxtapositions of form between sculptures and the surroundings. Sometimes visitors became part of the frame. The resulting photographs came about as the result of a slow process of recognition of the visual possibilities of this amazing landscape.

Thanks to the trust of J. Seware Johnson, two years after I finished the project I was given the opportunity to have a solo show of my work there.