Ascension & Descend

I have taken the metaphor of the stairway as a poetic trigger for passage and deliverance, in a general sense, but also as it applies to the act of photography.

Looking for pictures is a search for some kind of existential permanence, or, giving a notional objective view to the commonplace. It’s photography driven by a feeling or yearning that there could be something precious revealed around the corner and it needs to be contained otherwise it may be lost.

In a perfect parallel, this series was propelled by a period of constant travel and a chance reading on the life of Emmanuel Swedenborg, a prominent 18th Century Swedish philosopher/mystic who at 53 had an “spiritual awakening” that gave him access to walk freely amongst angels and demons as he documented Heaven & Hell.

I wanted to make tribute to the most ordinary of structures and present it as a metaphysical postcard, reminiscent of places and memories, suggesting more than what is seen.