Paper Images

by Keith Parks

I have been taking and making pictures since the days when it made your fingers smell. At first I lamented the departure of film, but the digital medium certainly has its advantages. While I do some computer processing of most of my images, I try and limit it to things that I could have done in the darkroom. It is important to me that the pictures are not overly synthetic.

As I have worked on my series of paper images, I have come to see it as the perfect subject: it’s cheap, comes in an almost endless variety of colors and textures, and is quite willing to sit for hours under the lights for multiple shots while I cut, fold, and fiddle with the “pose.”

Ultimately I am most inspired by the phenomenon of nature that we call “light”, by its human offspring vision and perception, and by the amazing things that happen when the three come together. I also love a nice picture of a cute kitten now and then.

Click on an image to enlarge it.