This body of work exercises my boyhood love of creating dioramas, and the narrative potential of creating miniature worlds. I work in a practice that strives to combine the pictorial elegance of a gum-bichromate print by Robert Demachy with the grand scope of contemporary science fiction. Each piece in the series begins with the construction of a miniature set created out of found objects, and customized ready-made materials. After carefully lighting and photographing these sculptures, I photograph real people along with other full-sized props to “populate” and complete the environment.

I employ an anachronistic process of combining digital imaging with gum bichromate printing. A layer of gum emulsion is hand applied to a sheet of watercolor paper and then exposed using a color-separated digital negative. Layer by layer the digital image is reassembled into a full-color gum print. During the intense developing process I selectively remove bits of emulsion and expressively gesture, revealing my hand. The intensely manipulated final print is both rich in tone and surface depth.