Journal

The lake, like on this day late in February of 2017, is so wonderfully quiet, the cold winds of winter having calmed for long enough to allow the water to become still. The warm tones in the sky above the horizon line reflecting across the lakes surface. This is Lake Michigan, February 21st, 2017 (2), from my Lake Series.

Oil Stick Drawing – Untitled 40, is one in a series of drawings and paintings that use seriality to explore abstraction. This drawing measure 41.5 inches by 29.5 inches and all of the works in this series are available framed and unframed. To view all the works in this series, please click here.

A beautifully designed interior by, Nelson Collective, a really excellent interior design firm located here in Chicago, that features a photograph from my Lake Series installed in a dining room. I always enjoy getting to see how a designer works with art in the spaces that they create and it’s always wonderful to see completed!

A final August day from 2020 features again, the impossible blues of summertime from the Lake Series. While these days might be frequent as summer comes to an end, they remain quite special for how remarkable their color can be. Days like this, I spend as much time as I can appreciating the opportunity I have to take these photographs, the water quietly pushing at my feet.

When winter comes to Chicago, it really makes an appearance. These February days, like the diptych shown here from February 7th, 2017, will make you appreciate the warmth of summer that much more. Ice thaws and refreezes here, creating new patterns from old ice. Each freeze and thaw cycle introducing new complexity, texture, color and size to the ice. You can view all of the diptychs that I have been working on in 2020 here.

A very early morning sunrise on the lake provided a soft and subdued pastel photograph of diffuse light reflecting across the water from this photo in the Lake Series from August 26th. The subtle shifting tones from warm to cool, from the sky to the horizon line, are always so delicate on these days.

August 5th, 2020 on Lake Michigan had a lightness to it that makes the photograph feel like it could lift into the air. Hazy, soft and gentle, the angle of the sun is starting to hit the water differently from earlier in the summer, reflecting off the surface to shimmer along the horizon. See the entire Lake Series here.

Storms were dramatic last month with heavy cloud cover often appearing quickly over the lake like on this day, August 4th, 2020. View the entire Lake Series here.

A photograph of the lake from August 13th, 2020. These types of days, numerous in the summer, have beautiful, almost Prussian blue waters. There is a depth to the color of the waters that is absolutely mesmerizing.

For the next week I’ll be featuring photographs from Lake Michigan that are a part of the Lake Series, focusing on this past month and highlighting the broad range of qualities and characteristics that the lake can possess this time of year. Here, on August 3rd, 2020, you can see rain falling far out over the water from heavy cloud cover that poured over the city and lake. Somehow, the sun has pushed through those clouds to create a razors edge of light along the horizon line.

As the sun sets, the parks and public lands that sit alongside Lake Michigan, empty of their visitors. While I generally photograph the lake in the morning, I have found these public spaces, filled with people, pets and life during the day, to be particularly striking as subjects when approached at night. The Nocturne series is a limited edition set of photographs taken in the last several years of my time spent along the lake here in Chicago.

Snow covers the valleys of this section of the Lone Peak in Big Sky, Montana. This photograph is part of the Transformations series, an ongoing project that features geographically disparate sites that all explore places that sit in a delicate balance with the environment that surrounds them.

February 25th, 2019 (2) is a photograph I love for it’s subtlety. The way in which the colors barely, imperceptibly shift in an incredibly tight range of blues. A horizon line is just visible, clouds, slightly warmed by the sky through the heavy morning light turn gently peach. Water and clouds become indistinguishable from one another early this late winter morning. To view the entire Lake Series collection, please click here.

These clouds appeared almost out of nowhere, emerging from the thin hazy sky and rapidly shifting form as they moved in front of my camera. I was able to capture this pair of medium format photographs to create this diptych, June 13th, 2017, for the Lake Series Panoramas project I recently announced earlier this summer. You can view the entire Panorama Series here.

Jade green waters pour over the concrete walls that push back on Lake Michigan near the downtown. But with ease, this body of water encroaches upon these barriers, often bringing their permanence into question. Seeing the lake from this view is always exciting to me. The edge of the water reveals so much to you when seen from the sky. During the winter of 2018, I took to the skies and filmed over a frozen and barren Lake Michigan, scanning the surface of this body of water to reveal entire worlds I couldn’t imagine. That film can be seen in full here.

As summer comes to a close this year, I wanted to look back at a pair of photographs from the spring of 2018 that are, in many ways, the type of day people think of when asked about summer days on Lake Michigan. It’s one last look at those impossible blues that come with the shift in weather. A still day on the lake with barely any clouds. Something to keep in mind as the days get colder again. Look back at the entire summer of 2020 on Lake Michigan here.

A pair of photographs from the Lake Series that both explore similar qualities to both their sky and water on nearly windless days on the lakefront. Water becomes mirror-like as it reflect the delicate clouds that fill the sky on September 26th and July 5th, 2016. To see more photographs in the Lake Series, please visit the collection here.

Nocturne 3 is part of another series that I started working on as the Lake Series evolved. Informed by the landscape that sits just beside the lake, featuring the land that sits between Chicago and the water. Photographed at night, these public sites can become a stage for a story that is yet to be performed or perhaps one that has just come to an end. The entire series can be seen here, along with further information about the edition, framing and pricing.

A diptych from 1995 featuring a different kind of landscape, this one created via a pair of oilstick drawings that measure 30 inches by 41.5 inches each. These drawings are part of a larger series of work exploring abstraction that continues to have resonance for myself in the photographs I’m making today. To see more oilstick and charcoal drawings in this series, please click here.

Lake Michigan became turbulent and dark with a threatening and ominous air that left things feeling quite tense while I stood at the lake edge to photograph this day. I had intended to leave quickly, however the clouds kept shifting in these strange ways, allowing windows to be cut into them, revealing layers of sunlit cloud banks nestled in the midst of a storming sky. This is July 2nd, 2019 (2) a photograph from the Lake Series. See the entire Lake Series here.

This day on the lake had heavy cloud cover that kept shifting dramatically and seemed to indicate potential storms. Because of how quickly things were changing I needed to wait until just the right moment to capture this pair of photographs. Lake Michigan, July 31st, 2016, is a diptych created from two medium format photographs and is featured in the Lake Series Panoramas collection which can be seen via the link in my bio. To see more photographs from this series, please click here.

This Lake Series photograph from July 22nd, 2020 has that particular hazy summer quality to it that comes with the heat and humidity of late July along Lake Michigan here in Chicago. See the entire Lake Series here.

Lake Series, Lake Michigan, August 1st, 2020. We began this month of lake photographs in a subdued manner. Soft edges, featuring gentle shifts in tone and color. To see more photographs from this series, please click here.

Sun breaks through heavy cloud cover on this dramatically lit day on Lake Michigan. The two photographs that comprise this diptych work in part because of the stillness that had settled in during this weather pattern. Clouds shifted apart and allowed light to break through slowly and I was able to capture it from the edge of the lake. This is July 7th, 2017 and this limited edition photograph is part of my ongoing Lake Series Panoramas project. To see all of the photographs from this series here.

Just a little under a month ago this hazy and steely gray sky greeted me on the shores of Lake Michigan. This is the morning of July 27th, 2020. To see more photographs from this series, please click here.

Submerged in the lake this year, perhaps next year it will be fully exposed again. With each passing season I am reminded to not assume too much about how the lake will behave. And with the lake always testing it’s boundaries, these man-made obstacles, impediments and introductions can quickly be subsumed by the power of nature. This is The Shore V, and is part of a limited edition series of prints I’ve been working on for the last half of a decade that explores the tension between the lake and human beings. The entire series can be seen in full here.

Lake Series Panoramas, Lake Michigan, October 7th, 2016 is a diptych with clouds that radiate from the horizon like spokes on a bike wheel, rippling across the sky on this mid-fall morning. To see more photographs from this series, please click here.

A lush carpet of plant life, so rich with texture and color, create entire worlds for you to get lost in the details of. All of these different plants working with one another to thrive under the protection of the forest canopy in the Redwood Forests of California. This photograph is Redwood Forest, California (XVIII). The entire Redwood Forest, California series can be viewed here.

Silver skies and water on a mid-September day. These mornings, where sky and water mirror one another so closely in quality are really special in how surprisingly different they are to the more colorful days you get used to in the summer. Watching the horizon shift in and out of pastels as the morning passed gave this otherwise steely day a warmth to it. See more photos from the entire Lake Series here.

Lake Series Panoramas, May 5th 2016, is a diptych photograph of Lake Michigan as the sun begins to rise early in the morning. On this day I had arrived well before any light began to come from the horizon and over the course of an hour I was able to capture diptych and triptych photographs of the sun as it began to push higher into the sky. Seen in their entirety, it’s almost impossible to imagine that so many vibrant and varied colors can exist, let alone in the span of a single sunrise. The entire Lake Panorama series can be viewed here.

Hazy and humid, the sky and water almost become one with subtle shifting colors on July 20th, 2020. See more photos from the entire Lake Series here.

Mountain face and icebergs meld and merge together, forming a topography that does not exist in reality in this photograph, Glacier V. Instead it is a generative photograph created using custom designed software that takes a series of images, in this case, glaciers and the surrounding landscape in Alaska, and uses chance and algorithms to help shape the final artwork by showing new ways of working with images. The entire Portrait of a Glacier series can be viewed here.

The relationship between land and water changes depending on the proximity of the water to the city of Chicago. Here in this photograph, taken near the downtown buildings and their residents, steel and concrete walls hold the waters of Lake Michigan at bay, a seemingly impermeable barrier, now more often than not, surprisingly fragile. This is The Shore VI. The entire The Shore series can be seen here.

A triptych photograph from September 6th, 2017. This stormy day on Lake Michigan is one in a series of new diptych and triptych photographs of the lake taken over the last 5 years. A link to the entire series can be found here.

Two summer mornings that exemplify the type of blues that become predominant as the summer continues to progress. This particular pair of photographs are from June 2nd, 2020 and July 6th, 2020 and are a part of the Lake Series, a limited edition photographic series that I began in the fall of 2015 and continue to work on today. The entire Lake Series can be found here.

A morning on Lake Michigan where the water has reclaimed, perhaps momentarily or for a longer time, more of the man-made beaches that line the city’s eastern shores. This is, The Shore XI, part of my limited edition photographic series, The Shore which is now available for viewing here.

Portrait of a Walk, Aspen, is a series of photographs that takes the landscape of mountainous Aspen, Colorado and uses my custom designed software to create generative portraits of a place and time. This is, Portrait of a Walk, Aspen 5. The entire Portrait of a Walk, Aspen series can be found here.

Clouds form layering pastels and blues in the sky over Lake Michigan on May 26th, 2020. These days are simply sublime, the way light will shift with the sun’s movement, which in turn allows for different aspects of the cloud cover to be highlighted as time passes. The entire Lake Series, including this photograph, can be found here.

A miniature landscape appears on the forest floor in Redwood Forest, California (V). I’ve always been drawn to taking these photographs that reveal entire worlds of plant life that sometimes get lost in the bigger picture. The entire Redwood Forest series can be viewed here.

I have always loved this morning of photographs, the strange way that the clouds sit in perfect parallel to the horizon line, doubling the horizon while masking the sun as it starts to push upwards into the sky. This photograph is part of my new Lake Series Panoramas, a collection of limited edition photographs now available for viewing here. (Lake Series Panorama, August 4th, 2016)

When the wind starts to move across the lake like on this day, August 31st 2017, you really feel the lake and sky move around you. It can be, at times, distracting when photographing the lake, something always at risk of being blown over or away. But the results, like in this diptych photograph, make it worth that extra effort. This photograph is part of my new Lake Series Panoramas, a collection of limited edition photographs now available for viewing here.

Pastel tones fill the sky as the sun rises early in the morning on April 1st, 2017. This triptych is a part of my Lake Series Panoramas collection which can be found here. This series features numerous diptych and triptych photographs of Lake Michigan taken from between 2015 and 2018.

Dark and dramatic clouds on the first day of February 2017. The balance between shadows and light, color and darkness give these mornings a brooding air that I love to capture. This is a diptych photograph available as a part of the Lake Series Panoramas collection. All of the photographs in this series can be found on my site. A link to this particular series can be found here.

This type of morning on the lake, with emerald green waters and heavy cloud cover, appear with greater frequency around March. This triptych, part of the Lake Series Panoramas, is part of a larger collection of diptychs and triptychs that feature Lake Michigan as the subject. A link to the Lake Series Panoramas page, with all of the photographs featured in this series, can be found here. (Lake Series Panorama, March 28th, 2017)

A startling blue spring day with barely any clouds or wind, which allows the lake to become mirror lake, with only slight ripples shifting across the surface of the water. This photograph is, Lake Series Panorama, May 8th, 2018. A link to the Lake Series Panoramas page, with all of the photographs featured in this series, can be found here.

An ethereal morning on Lake Michigan as clouds, water and light all meld into one another. This triptych is a part of a new series of limited edition photographs titled, Lake Series Panoramas. A link to the Lake Series Panoramas page, with all of the photographs in this series, can be found in my bio. (Lake Series Panorama, April 19th, 2017)An ethereal morning on Lake Michigan as clouds, water and light all meld into one another. This triptych is a part of a new series of limited edition photographs titled, Lake Series Panoramas. A link to the Lake Series Panoramas page, with all of the photographs in this series, can be found here. (Lake Series Panorama, April 19th, 2017)

In February of this year, I began to work on this series of new photographs, having waited since 2016 to begin the selection and editing process. It is an on-going project to work back into my archive to create these photographs. I’m excited to be able to share these panoramas from the first four years of my time spent on the shores of Lake Michigan and I can’t wait to share with you the final two years of this project later in the fall. A link to the Lake Series Panoramas page, with all of the photographs featured in this series, can be found here. (Lake Michigan, May 9th, 2016)

The possibilities presented by the panoramic format have allowed me to create these photographs at a previously unattainable scale for public, private and corporate collections. The years I spent making large scale sculpture and interactive digital environments inform how I think about the relationships between the work and the site. I love the challenge and potential that comes with each project and working with clients to find solutions for their spaces and lives. A link to the Lake Series Panoramas page, with all of the photographs featured in this series, can be found here. (Lake Michigan, July 7th, 2017, (client mock-up, private collection))

Each panoramic photograph is a composite of multiple individual photographs taken with a medium format camera that capture the lake, sky and horizon in a series of panels that allow for expansive views of Lake Michigan when edited and joined together later in studio. A link to the Lake Series Panoramas page, with all of the photographs featured in this series, can be found here. (Lake Michigan, October 24th, 2019)

Early one May morning in the spring of 2016, I took a pair of photographs that would be the impetus for a separate body of work that expands the frame from the Lake Series in order to create large panoramic photographs of Lake Michigan. An accidental diptych that revealed the possibility for what has become the Lake Series Panoramas. (Lake Michigan, August 10th, 2016 (2), (client mock-up and final installation))

When the Lake Series began in September 2015, it started as an impulse that became, over time, a ritual. Simply put, photograph Lake Michigan each day in the morning or at night. As time passed and the series grew in scale, patterns began to emerge and certain positions along the lake became my chosen sites to work from. Each site has a special relationship to the landscape that surrounds it. (Lake Michigan, February 15th, 2018 (1))

It’s hard to imagine now after weeks of high summer temperatures that the lake will ever return to ice and winter. February 26th, 2019, had started with an intense and foggy blue morning, but by afternoon the lake had begun to freeze back over with temperatures dropping and clouds gathering heavily for another storm.

Snow lays lightly on the sand as it drifts on the beach that leads you to the edge of Lake Michigan. With this photograph, Shore 1, and with all the photographs in the Shore series, I’m interested in studying the balance between humans and the lake. This afternoon, deep in winter, what stood out to me was the delicacy of the entire scene, every material; sand, snow, cloud and water slipping into one another as late afternoon turned into evening.

The photograph that starts it all. This is the first day of the Lake Series project, September 8th, 2015, a day that turned the clouds and their reflection into a color of lavender that you get to occasionally see if the light is just right and the clouds just heavy enough over the lakes surface. Ethereal and unexpected. (Lake Michigan, September 8th, 2015)

Almost indiscernible at first glance, slivers of blue push at the edges of clouds that spread across the sky over the troubled waters of the Pacific Ocean early in the morning. This particular photograph is Lost Coast VIII, part of my Lost Coast series.

Lichen drapes itself on the branches of trees in the undergrowth of the Redwood forests in California. Sunlight dapples plant leaves, filtered by trees that tower overhead. I have been lucky to be able to return repeatedly to photograph the Redwood forests and it’s these moments of stillness and peace that are really profoundly beautiful and that I seek out whenever I get the chance to return again.

An installation photograph of Lost Coast XVII, which I recently shared on here. Getting to see these photographs framed and installed for clients is always such a pleasure. Loved getting to see this installed alongside works from the Aspen, Redwood Forests and other Lost Coast photographs for a client here in Chicago.

This is a triptych photograph captured early in the morning on May 16th, 2017. That morning I spent the entire sunrise photographing the lake, carefully scanning the horizon, slowly building triptych photographs over time. These have become part of a new series of multiple panel photographs that I’ve been working on this spring and summer. With all of the artwork in the new series, the possibility for larger scale installations really opens up to print and install photographs that have a large scale which encourages you to become immersed in them.

Lush and large green leaves line the forest floors in Gearhart, Oregon (2). There is a textural aspect to these plant leaves that is really fascinating to think about. Each leaf has an architecture to it, built and structured to be ideal for supporting such large and open forms, especially in the rainy conditions of the Pacific Northwest.

Lace like foam spreads itself across ocean water on the black sand beaches of the Lost Coast in California. That day had such an incredible emerald green quality to the water, the colors shifting quickly as the sky opened up and then quickly became dark with approaching storms.Lace like foam spreads itself across ocean water on the black sand beaches of the Lost Coast in California. That day had such an incredible emerald green quality to the water, the colors shifting quickly as the sky opened up and then quickly became dark with approaching storms.

Early in the morning, having gotten up early and into the forest before the sun rose, allowed for me to have the time to reach the beach along the Lost Coast of California. The water is so different from what I am used to photographing with Lake Michigan with colors, tones and textures unique to this location, this is Lost Coast II.

Overgrown and returning to the earth, this stump sits on the edge of a glade in the Redwood forests of California. Part of a series that studies the remains of these magnificent trees to relish in the world that grows from their decay. Riotous vines and ferns tumble over and around it. This is Stump Reborn I.Overgrown and returning to the earth, this stump sits on the edge of a glade in the Redwood forests of California. Part of a series that studies the remains of these magnificent trees to relish in the world that grows from their decay. Riotous vines and ferns tumble over and around it. This is Stump Reborn I.

Separated by a day and taken earlier this spring on March 24th and 25th, I couldn’t help but be struck by the quality of these two photographs when set beside one another. With their muted sky and water, diffuse light and heavy cloud cover, these photographs almost have an other-worldly quality to them.

Fog lays heavily on Lake Michigan early in the season before most people would dare to go in the water. The beaches covered by the tracks of machines, used each year before winter to move sand into piles and berms, adding a layer of protection as the harsh winter sets in. With spring, the machines return, to move this sand back into place, to return these beaches to their normal state.

Early in the morning, having gotten up early and into the forest before the sun rose, allowed for me to have the time to reach the beach along the Lost Coast of California. The water is so different from what I am used to photographing with Lake Michigan with colors, tones and textures unique to this location, this is Lost Coast II.

A cold day on Lake Michigan in the middle of February shows how, when the ice freezes and thaws, it will begin to collect snow along the edges as the wind whips across the lake’s surface. This photograph is Lake Michigan, February 20th, 2019 (2).

One of the great pleasures that comes from photographing nature is the way in which entire worlds are revealed by the lens and a fair bit of patience and time. Ferns in a gully from my Lost Coast series of limited edition photographs.

A diptych from a morning in November of 2016 featuring blues, greens, purples and pastels in both clouds and water. The way the lake moves on days like this is always captivating to me. Lake Michigan, November 2nd, 2016 (2) & Lake Michigan, November 2nd, 2016 (3). View the entire Lake Series here.

A wonderful shot of my photograph, Lake Michigan, May 10th, 2017, installed in the beautiful lobby of Suzanne Lovell Inc’s offices last year. That day on the lake had a dreamlike quality to it, filled with an ethereal morning light. The Lake Series can be viewed in full here.

A day on the lake that had incredible Turner-like clouds in the sky. Being able to spend time standing in front of beauty like this and to continue to photograph the lake each day is an enormous privilege and pleasure. This is Lake Michigan, July 31st, 2016 (1), a limited edition print and part of the Lake Series. View the entire Lake Series here.

This photograph, Submerged rocks, Lake Michigan (3), is another in a set of prints that focus their attention on the ways in which water, rock and light interact to create a fascinating study in opacity and layering. It is always hard to distinguish in these photographs where one material begins and another ends and it’s that quality I keep searching for with these particular works.

Details from a photograph taken in Utah in the Zion Canyon that studies the incredible polyphony of life covering the surface of a boulder. This particular photograph is entitled, Lichen. Zion Canyon, Utah (1) and is a part of the Transformations series of limited edition prints that I have been working on for the last several years.

Here are four days on Lake Michigan from my Lake Series that really emphasize how wildly different a “blue day on the lake” can look. It’s this incredible diversity in how the lake can be on any given day that is largely why I continue to come to the lake’s edge. (Upper Left to Lower Right) October 8th, 2017 (1), Lake Michigan, May 14th, 2019 (1), February 25th, 2019 (2) and January 4th, 2017 (2).

My most recent visit to the Redwood forests included a period later in the day when I began to photograph these trees, or rather what remained of trees, long ago lost from this forest. Where they had once towered, there remained the stumps, each with incredible flourishes of new growth erupting from their tops. Stump Reborn III, Redwood Forests, California 2019.

Lake Michigan, July 7th, 2017 is a triptych photograph of the lake in mid-summer as rain falls from clouds that grow dark in the sky. View this photograph, and the entire Lake Series here.

Lichen. Snake River Range, Wyoming (2). It’s always fascinating to see the conditions lichen can grow in. The way that it can, like in this photograph, cling to tree branches in order to not only live, but to flourish. View the entire Transformations series here.

The Shore VII is a photograph from, The Shore, a smaller collection of Lake Michigan photographs that study the relationship and boundary between land and water. Seemingly impermeable manmade construction struggles with each passing year to contain a lake that is constantly changing before our eyes.

A pair of photographs, separated by just under a month from the Lake Series and were taken in April and May of 2020. These types of days I always describe as being “impossibly blue”. As summer has begun we will get more of these days, shifting away from the darker and more subdued colors of winter and late spring. 

A hazy morning on the lake seen here in, Lake Michigan, April 28 2020, (1). Late April this year was a mixture of dramatic dark mornings and a number of strikingly beautiful clear blue days. More information about the Lake Series, including all the photographs to date, can be seen here.

Post Text: The Shore IX is from a group of photographs that I’ve been working on alongside the Lake Series collection. The Lake Series began as I traveled on my bike between my home and my studio here in Chicago. Six years later and with each season passing, I am reminded of just how delicate the balance between the lake and the manmade landscape is. That balance has become the subject of the photographs found within the The Shore collection.

Submerged Rocks, Lake Michigan (4), features water pouring over a large boulder covered in red and maroon algae and other plant growth along the edges of the lake. There is a richness in both texture and color in this photograph, from the Transformations series, that is brought forward through the interactions of light, water, plant and rock.

May 17th, 2016 is a two panel diptych featuring a dark and roiling Lake Michigan.

A jade green lake sits beneath a cloud filled sky at the end of this past April 2020 and while the wind was pushing up the lake waters that day, there was a quality of suspension that filled the air. This particular photograph is Lake Series, Lake Michigan, April 29th, 2020.

Oceans Edge I, California, is completely filled by life. Barnacles, crustaceans, seaweed; anything that can possibly cling to the these rocks is doing it’s best to do so. Eking out a life in some of the most difficult of conditions, they are able to continue to survive. From the limited edition series, Lost Coast.

A trio of photographs taken on March 7th, 2017. Each photograph was taken after a given interval of time had passed, allowing us to see the shifting ombre of sunrise early in spring on Lake Michigan. From the Lake Series, a five year investigation into the contours of Lake Michigan.

600 Fairbanks was a longer term project that was a large scale video installation, a set of smaller individual video works and a series of limited edition prints in six sets. Each set features photographs created from my generative video work and take as their subject, the construction of a massive high-rise condominium in the center of Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood.

Capturing images from every angle and vantage point, these prints create another way of understanding process and time over the course of this massive undertaking. I was able to place, amongst other locations, cameras at the end of a crane’s boom, which allowed for us to really change the scale and perspective of the artwork.

Early in the morning, on a late September day, I came to the lake and took this photograph. I have always been struck by how powerful the lake can feel, even in a state of calm. Lake Series, Lake Michigan, September 25th, 2018.

Lost Coast XIII, Gulls and other birds flock together in the sky over the point where river meets ocean and the salmon begin to work their way upriver to spawn. There was an incredible atmosphere to this morning, the beach filled with the sounds of the ocean, and the waters churning with life. You can view the entire Lost Coast series here.

With Portrait of a Walk, Aspen 1, there are at least five photographs working together to create the artwork. I had become really interested in creating another way of thinking about recording and memory related to the video installations I had been doing. In this instance a hike through the forests and mountains of Aspen, Colorado. How do we remember a place or a period of time and what can that possibly look like?

An array of Lake Series photographs installed together in a private home.

Fallen trees split in two lay on the floor of a Redwood forest in the Lost Coast region of Northern California. There is a smoothness to these tree trunks that allows there to be an almost silvery light reflected off of them where the bark has disappeared.

We’ve always called this photo Silver Lake, a photograph from the Lake Series, in the studio and that’s for pretty obvious reasons. We’ve had it printed out at a larger scale for reference when working on projects and we always seem to come back to it as a great example of lake photographs that almost appear to be almost one color.

Submerged rocks, Lake Michigan (1) is from a limited edition series of photographs that I’ve taken over several years while working alongside the lake’s edge. I have always been captivated by the way the water and light work together to create complex transparencies and layering through their interaction on the rocks and in the water above them.

Lichen, Big Sky, Montana, is a photograph that studies the curve of a tree trunk in the Big Sky region of Montana. This work is from the Transformations series, an ongoing limited edition series of photographs I have worked on for the last several years while traveling to National Parks and wilderness in the Western United States.

Lake Michigan, May 1st, 2018 (2) and Lake Michigan, May 3rd, 2018 (2) are separated by two days and together are a study in restraint from the Lake Series. They have a level of subtlety that encourages you to take your time to consider them.

Portrait of a Walk, Aspen 2, is one of six in a series of photographs that began combining and manipulating multiple photos to create a final image. These photographs are created largely using studio designed software that seeks to intervene in our process of working to show extended ways of imagining place and time.

One of the most striking mornings of fall in 2018 was this early August 8th day when the lake turned an inky black and green as clouds rolled in overhead and darkened quickly. It was a day to photograph for as long as possible, while knowing it might be important to be ready to leave as quickly as the clouds were coming in. This photograph is part of the Lake Series, a collection of photographs you can view here.

A couple of details of the incredible world of lichen that I’ve spent the last several years photographing. I have been utterly captivated by the subtlety and detail in these scenes. This photograph is Lichen. Teton Range, Wyoming (2), from my ongoing Transformations series.

A dramatic day on Lake Michigan shown here in three panels. On days like this, the lake has a character that really lends itself to multiple photograph/panel works like this triptych.

I love this shot of my photograph, Blueschist from Sasha Adler’s offices, from the Lost Coast series that I shared last weekend. It’s shown here installed in their beautiful office space here in Chicago.

These two smaller works are oil stick on paper and are also from 1995 and were made during the same period as the four paintings I shared yesterday. These are a part of a larger series of drawings and related paintings that use oil stick to work with ideas related to form and abstraction. These drawings are 41.5 inches by 29.625 inches. The entire series of drawings can be found here.

Oil Stick Drawings, Untitled 31 (Image 1), Oil Stick Drawings, Untitled 2 (Image 2)

A selection of four paintings that were part of a 1995 solo show of sculpture, drawings and paintings with the Spanish gallery, Galeria Ferran Cano. Exploring form, abstraction and scale, what is so seductive in these is the gestural marks left by building up layers of oil stick. This series can be seen here.

Europa (Top), Grain Boy (Bottom) (Image 1), Yell, Use Both Hands (Top), Skinny Dip (Bottom) (Image 2). Each measures 79 inches by 97 inches.

I started to take photographs at night when I stopped driving everywhere. Biking in Chicago gives you access to places that you might not use when moving through the city at certain times of day. Each of the scenes in the Nocturne series, like the photograph Nocturne 2 show here, take the emptiness of public spaces as their subject. Each photograph almost appears to be a stage set, a performance about to begin. View the entire series here.

Portrait of a Glacier III uses multiple photographs to create a new landscape that explore a way of seeing that has more of a relationship to how we might remember a place or time. Layering photographs and using custom software designed in studio to help make initial composition and editing decisions, the final work is then edited by hand.

It is always exciting to see how art changes and begins to interact with the objects that surround it, the architecture and the inhabitants when installed in a new location. Here are two large oil stick paintings, Yell, Use Both Hands and Skinny Dip (second image), both from 1995, installed in the design studios of Suzanne Lovell here in Chicago.

Redwood Forests, Fall I, is one in a series of limited edition photographs taken in the Redwood Forests in California. The way the fog was sitting in the forests that morning was really special. You can see the entire series here.

Separated by nearly a year, these two photographs of Lake Michigan, on August 24th, 2018 and then on the right on August 16th, 2017 show two days where the sky and water take on muted, almost paste tones, a quality that has always felt as if the brilliance of summer is beginning to fade in the light, colors appearing a bit washed out, it has a dreamlike quality to it. These days in the Lake Series are so subtle, you really need to pay attention.

Cadence is a video that contemplates three months of last year, from May to July of 2019. Each day moves into the next, waves and clouds morph over time and water and sky change color. Cadence is another way of thinking about Lake Michigan and its changes over time.

March 25th, 2016, (3) & (1) are two photographs that have always sat next to each other in my mind from the Lake Series. A stormy day with remarkably shaped waves and a dark heavy sky made for a dramatic scene.

Peering into forest as dense and lush as the one shown above in Yachats, Oregon is always so satisfying because of the things you discover tucked away in the foliage. Yachats, Oregon (6), from the Lost Coast series of limited edition photographs.

Forest Walk II takes multiple photographs from a hike taken in the mountains of Colorado and uses them as a starting point to create a portrait of that day. This series of work looks at how we depict time and place by asking a series of questions.

What happens when we open our editing to chance? What if we use software designed in studio to make decisions through algorithms? What becomes possible when we don’t decide everything that occurs in a process?

Lake Michigan on certain days, like this day February 15th, 2018, give me the opportunity to question what I know to be Lake Michigan. Harsh weather conditions and particular weather wipe out recognizable features, remove scale and create entirely new landscapes to photograph. View the entire Lake Series here.

A photograph from the Nocturne series, Nocturne 1 sets a stage just out of sight, hidden by the shacks and bike shares parked on the beach of Lake Michigan in the summer.

One of my favorite photographs from 2018 is this one from March 5th. There is something so impossible about the color of the sky and water and the way that the water is spraying up in the air. Lake Series, Lake Michigan, March 5th, 2018.

Each trip to photograph the Lost Coast region in California has shown me something special and different with each return. In order to get to this particular beach, where river and ocean meet, I passed through incredible fern gullies, went over streams and stood underneath great redwood trees. These salmon fisherman are working through cold weather and heavy fogs to move their nets slowly early in the morning.

November 1st, 2015 (1) & February 17th, 2016 (2) When seen together, these two photographs from the Lake Series, have a way of balancing against one another and creating a tension that I’ve always enjoyed.

Lake Series, Lake Michigan, May 10th, 2017, A morning in May with heavy cloud cover allowing a filtered sunlight through that gives the water an almost velvet quality, rich and deep in tone.

Lake Series, Lake Michigan, January 7th, 2020 (2), Morning at the beginning of this year, crystalline and clear air over the lake. Pastel tones pushing through towards the horizon. A completely captivating morning.

From the Lake Series, Lake Michigan, April 1st, 2017, A morning on the lake that felt like standing inside of a bejeweled box. The way the colors would shift and change into each other, constantly evolving before me.

Lake Series, Lake Michigan, February 18th, 2019 (4), One of my favorite days from 2019 was on a cold end of February morning where the sky and lake glowed with impossible purples and blues.

Winter is always a season that tends to remind us to appreciate those warmer times of year. But winter also gives me some of my most dramatic days, ice, snow, rain, heavy winds all work together to shape the lake in ways that I just don’t see other times of year. The absolute scale of the ice blocks here, thrown effortlessly by the lake onto the shore; breakers covered heavily in ice having formed from repeating waves.

Every time I sit with this photograph, which is printed at a large scale in the studio, I am struck by just how impossible it is to realize the complexities of the natural world that surrounds us.

A limited edition series of photographs taken of the Mendenhall and Herbert Glaciers in Juneau, Alaska. With this series I began to intervene with my photography in ways that I had been doing with video processing for over a decade. In the end working in ways that opened up image processing to chance through layering and alteration using software designed in studio and which allowed for a great playfulness and showed new ways of working with photographs.

Lost Coast is a limited edition series of photographs that explore the incredible Lost Coast region of Northern California. Being able to spend time in such grandeur is something I’ve never taken for granted, although now the time spent in these places feels more special than ever. Second photo is an installation shot from Expo Chicago.

With Lake Ice, we are able to turn our understanding of what a lake is on it’s head. We are given a way of experiencing a landscape that is utterly foreign to us. Alien and deceptive in it’s subject matter. It is both confounding in terms of scale and material. Lake Ice shows us the unrelenting nature of winter in the midwestern United States, as well as the great beauty. Sheets of ice form, freeze and thaw, a cycle that repeats over the course of winter. Every piece of ice is constantly in flux until they disappear fully into the lake. Each day the ice changes in it’s shape, size, texture, crystal structure, thickness and opacity.

While these ice floes have periods of monumental greatness in terms of scale and weight they are as equally fleeting and fragile in nature. Lake Ice shows that what can appear permanent and unmovable can disappear overnight without a trace. 

Over the course of winter of 2018, on some of the most unforgiving days of that season, I decided to deploy a drone with an attached video camera. This period of filming produced a completely new way of knowing Lake Michigan and it’s still something I’m working to comprehend. I’ll be sharing the full video, Lake Ice, from this project tomorrow, hoping we can begin to usher out winter into spring.

There are certain mornings on Lake Michigan where my timing is just right and I get the chance to create photographs like this. Three separate photographs from the Lake Series, brought together to create one large scale panorama.

One of the great pleasures that comes from photographing nature is the way in which entire worlds are revealed by the lens and a fair bit of patience and time.

We often talk about the colors of spring as they pertain to gardens, fields and forests. A time of year when plants emerge, trees leaf, and flowers burst from the ground. All of this filling our world with every color imaginable.

It wasn’t always apparent to me that Lake Michigan’s appearance would also change along with the seasons. But as winter was ushered out by spring, that first year I photographed the lake, it immediately became evident that the changes to the land would be mirrored on the lake’s surface.

Suddenly Lake Michigan began to show an entirely new set of qualities related to light and color, rich and brilliant, heavily saturated hues in bronzes, oranges, reds, blues and purples. There is an intensity to many of these days that stands in stark contrast to the muted and dark periods of winter. Each season has, as is now quite obvious, it’s own character and nature and spring has, without a doubt, often had the power to leave me breathless. Spring on Lake Michigan shows us a world coming alive again from the last winter days.

This year I wanted to create a collection of photographs from around the year that consider and complement the emotional character of spring’s colors and landscape. To view in full, please click here.

With Warm Regards,
Lincoln

A limited edition series of photographs taken of the Mendenhall and Herbert Glaciers in Juneau, Alaska. With this series I began to intervene with my photography in ways that I had been doing with video processing for over a decade. In the end working in ways that opened up image processing to chance through layering and alteration using software designed in studio and which allowed for a great playfulness and showed new ways of working with photographs.

April 15th, 2020 on Lake Michigan came with heavy winds and gusts that reminded us that winter can still come the middle of April.

Domestic Scene 11

Domestic Scene 9

Domestic Scene 8

Domestic Scene 13

Domestic Scene 7

Domestic Scene 10

Domestic Scene 12

Domestic Scene 1

Domestic Scene 6

Domestic Scene 3

Domestic Scene 2

Domestic Scene 4

Domestic Scene 5

Domestic Scene 7

An ongoing series of photographs exploring life for a family of five as they shelter in place. This series will continue to evolve over time and can be viewed in it’s entirety here.

Lake Michigan on March 27th, 2020.

What marks time? How do we understand time’s passage? How can we imagine these markings have changed, with technology, with social and cultural changes, with shifts in religions and industries and families and lives. Can the humblest of materials, compost, be another way to understand ourselves in this world? Watching the beginning stages of both a material breaking down and also being born? From compost comes great possibilities and a nurturing that belies it’s sometimes unpleasant reputation.

Lake Michigan on March 26th, 2020.

“Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed.  Quit evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now.” – Epictetus

Lake Michigan on March 25th, 2020, ten minutes watching the sun rising over the water. 

“Our origins are of the earth.. and so there is in us a deeply seated response to the natural universe, which is part of our humanity”

Rachel Carson

Lake Michigan on March 24th, 2020, the wind has finally broken on the lake and birds have returned overhead, urging me on as I filmed this morning. A stillness, a peacefulness set upon me as I stood along the lakes edge. It is always here, its presence a constant, it’s character always in change.

Lake Michigan on March 23rd, 2020.

Lake Michigan on March 22nd, 2020.

Lake Michigan’s waters undulate against the shore’s edge, a part of my daily ritual, this process, standing before the lake, has taken on new meaning in this time. To be able to be here, in this moment, to stop and to listen, is so very important. Please enjoy this five minutes from the shore on March 20th, 2020.

Five minutes from my visit to Lake Michigan this morning. A heavy fog, a shifting blue lake, birds flocking overhead. A time for pause and reflection.

Watching/photographing the sunrise on Lake Michigan this morning-pure life force! You have to make it happen every day!

These are some of my favorite days to spend on Lake Michigan. When the separation from the water and the sky, between water and air, becomes hard to discern. These hazy, muted days, with their palettes of restraint, have a warmth that wraps around you, even on a cold winter day.

In September 2015 I began to photograph Lake Michigan daily for my Lake Series. Four and a half years later my ritual continues, it anchors me to the moment and the grandeur of being alive!

Trees are pruned heavily along the elevated train tracks on the North side of Chicago. These heavily shadowed forms have been of great interest lately. How do these figures take on new meanings as visual information is restricted. What happens when we exclude information, what new stories are told?

A mockup for a new project that has been exploring the surface of the Earth at a different scale and magnitude. Photographs taken from Aspen Colorado to Chicago Illinois, evenly spaced throughout the duration of the flight?

From fellow Bennington alum Mary Ruefle. This book reconnected me to myself. “In her recent work, Ruefle can seem like a supernally well-read person who has grown bored with what smartness looks like, and has grown attracted to the other side…. She is not writing with a prescription, or at least not one for this earth.” ―The New York Times

Lake Michigan pushing water over the lake edge along the eastern edge of Streeterville, here in Chicago downtown. A late February 2020 day, with fog, wind and all the rest.

“When the secret is exposed we look away, when the secret is hidden we try to see it.” Mary Ruefle

Large pieces of ice began to break apart on Lake Michigan and these forms begin to rub and push and break against each other along the shore. Each piece slowly becoming smaller with the passage of time, these ice floes disappear and reappear throughout the winter and spring.

Ice has broken and refrozen repeatedly before the morning that this photograph was taken on. You can see how smaller pieces of ice, disparate in shape and size, have begun to refreeze back together, following a momentary period of warmth. This is a process you can see all winter along Lake Michigan, with the waters of the lake endlessly creating new forms on its surface.

A beautiful photograph shared from a recent project by the Chicago based designers Nelson Collective featuring a photograph of Lake Michigan by Lincoln Schatz.

Pieces of ice have been forming and breaking along the shore of Lake Michigan all winter. These particular shards are so delicate, quickly melting away as they touch human skin.

“Artist Lincoln Schatz thinks about photos beyond framing and composition. On this 1-mile walk around Carnegie Library, he’ll challenge you to reset your creative habits and take photos based on how you feel. The streetscape will serve as a tool to create context and you’ll use iPhone to snap images inspired by your senses. Join us during Week 3 for video sessions during our StoryMakers Festival.”

Learn more about the event here.

Apple Store
801 K Street NW
Washington, DC 20001

Lincoln Schatz has a lifelong relationship with the sea. But as a native Chicagoan, the artist’s concept of a vast body of water is of the inland variety, one of a series of great wells carved by glaciers, filled in with icy fresh-water melt. Defining the city’s Eastern border, Lake Michigan’s lengthy reflection can cast a winter twilight in a glow of cerulean blue, extending over the urban skyline of glass and steel towers and to the Midwestern landscape beyond. Even urbanites ensconced in a frenzied, 21st-century pace, often blithely content to acknowledge the shore as a mere recreational asset or property enhancement, are soothed by the lake’s steadiness, unable to escape its magnetic pull. “Look east and you see the lake, only the lake,” says Schatz. “Turn around and you see Chicago.” Click here to read and see the entire project.

Lincoln Schatz will be conducting an Earth Day photo walk as part of todayatapple at the Michigan Avenue store in Chicago on April 27th, 2019 at 2pm.