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Serendipity shows its hand again.

This last weekend I visited a special artist friend of mine in Seattle, Jim Wilcher. On display in his home was this image I had gifted to him some 25 years ago, and to be honest had completely forgotten about it. Seeing it again was a fond remembrance of an era of youthful creativity and place. The image was shot through the bedroom window of my Los Angeles loft onto a rooftop one floor below. Coincidentally, one of our esteemed members of the DPG collective, David Moore was there to assist in this creation, along with another photographer who helped with the styling and layout.

This image was created to emulate the style of the painter Paul Wonner for a client that wholesaled bulk food and flavor ingredients, we shot 3 of these sets over 3 different days. I used a long lens on an 8×10 camera to flatten and compress the scene. Sunlight gives the image a deceivingly uniform exposure across an 8’ set in what otherwise might be considered a studio set up. Other bits of serendipity were the occasional breezes that flipped the pages of books – welcomed, and stronger gusts that blew objects over – bad wind. The ice cream was mashed potatoes, the whipping cream was shave cream. Also note the group of asparagus at top right corner.

It is a piece of my past, one that I am particularly fond of, not only for its photographic style, but also for the memories it brings to mind, and the lives it still touches to this day.