News — black and white

Inspired by a photograph of western snowy plovers on a Pebble Beach shoreline, this essay reflects on the recent conservation milestone that saw the species surpass 3,000 individuals along the Pacific Coast. Blending personal reflection with local conservation efforts on the Monterey Peninsula, the piece explores how art, observation, and quiet acts of stewardship intersect to protect one of California's most vulnerable shorebirds.

The Camera I Carry is my personal reflection on National Camera Day. Moving through my evolution from brushes to film to iPhone, and drawing on a recent wet plate collodion demonstration at the Monterey Museum of Art, I consider what connects Niépce's eight-hour exposure in 1826 to the woman on the pier that morning with her phone raised to the fog. The answer, I suggest, is not technology. It is intention.

In this cinematic black-and-white image, two anonymous figures stand atop luminous clouds above a dark sea, suspended between reality and dream. Inspired in spirit by the quiet surrealism of René Magritte, the work explores memory, human connection, and the invisible emotional landscapes people carry within them. The image invites viewers into an ambiguous narrative where symbolism replaces certainty and silence becomes part of the story.

In this evocative monochrome landscape, I transform a vibrant aloe hillside into a meditative exploration of inner conflict. By stripping away color, the work reveals a deeper psychological tension between perception and emotion, beauty and doubt. The image becomes less a depiction of place and more a reflection of the artist’s internal dialogue, where nature stands as both witness and participant in an unresolved, poetic negotiation.

The image explores how light not only reveals but reshapes reality, inviting viewers into a contemplative dialogue between presence and impermanence. This work revisits a fleeting morning in Pebble Beach where light transformed a forest into a transient, almost sacred space. Two distant figures emerge as symbolic travelers within a larger meditation on time, memory, and perception.