PHOTOGRAPHER'S THOUGHTS: This past year I traveled to New Mexico to begin a self-directed project called “Black Earth, Silent Venus”. The parameters of the project were to photograph women and men who love the earth, in places they hold as sacred. My search is to express how the figures in these images can convey the essence of each person’s sexual and psychic-love energy in relation to how I see the earth as a vital, elemental and mystical entity. The intention of this project is to recover the quality and feelings of the sexual expression I discovered as a child. This occurred being photographed during nature excursions with my father and running wild in a rural area. The impact of these events on my psyche was intensified by a lack of parental supervision, by my own and my family’s secrets and experiencing prophetic dreams.
