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Biography My name is Gabriel. I was born in Rochester, NY. I grew up wandering the woods near my house, always looking for adventure. I received a cheesy 110 camera for a birthday present when I was 6 or 7. This ignited a passion for taking pictures, and mostly I just looked for things in the woods or around my house to use in photographs. I came to Orlando, Florida in 1983 (which is where I currently reside). Here I developed a very early interest in computers - which at the time was not the cool thing it is today; it was downright geeky. But it was a part of my calling. Soon hereafter I started developing as a musical artist. I began with singing, and eventually playing guitar and keyboards. Music is still something I am engaged in today, and you can visit these websites for more details on that: Anyway, shortly after starting college my world of computers collided with music and photography. First it was music. My computer at the time was a 386 and worked great for sequencing music. Well not too long later (I think around 1991) one of my band mates (Pete) got a top of the line MacIntosh computer and a scanner. Then he introduced me to photoshop (either 2.0 or 2.5 - I cannot remember exactly, but I do know it did not have layers yet - argh!). What a liberating experience this was for me! I could create all sorts of things that never existed in a photographable form. I also developed a very early interest in the female form (perhaps not atypical for a human male). And in college some opportunities came my way to do nude photo studies of some beautiful women. Capturing a woman's moments of beauty in time became an important aspect of my photography. So that's my story in a nutshell. I am always looking for new a new muse to work with. So if you are an uninhibited woman in the Central Florida area and interested in doing some figure modeling in a professional environment, please do not hesitate to email me. I would love the opportunity to capture your beauty, and create something we can enjoy for the rest of our years. I look forward to hearing from you.
The process is a dichotomy (as often is the result). It is a delicate balance between yin and yang. First I engage in the photographic process. This is more the yang side. It is structured. I must first recruit models, scout locations, then plan some shots and come up with some loose ideas. Then the shoot has to work... there is no undo (I wish life came with a ctrl-z). I work with the model(s) on posing. I have to do my best to keep them comfortable. I enjoy it more if we can work together on the poses, giving the model an opportunity for self expression. The shoot usually goes better if I do not have to come up with the poses alone. So more structure... angles, lighting, framing. It is a lot to think about and it is very active. Next the yin side, computer post processing. This is more free form, fluid, changeable with my whims, and can be put aside for later, tossed away completely, or restarted from scratch. The computer is the ultimate artistic tool to me. Still misunderstood by many in my experience, yet gaining more appreciation over time. Here I start with a meditation, relax myself, feel the energy of the original photo... and when I am ready, allow expression to happen. From a single photo I make anywhere from one to a dozen variations that each take several hours. I choose the best ones, and shelve the rest. So for each digital manipulation piece of mine you see here, there are probably five or so that will never see the light of day outside of my studio. So it takes quite an effort to produce the final pieces. I love doing this though. I feel very passionately about my art, and cannot imagine life without the creative process. And my two step method gives me the best of both worlds, helping me achieve a harmonious balance within myself.
I began from the paradigm of "making things happen". I would envision how the final pieces should look, and work towards manifesting this. I thought this is how true artists work. And often great things would happen this way for me. However, I discovered better things happened along the way to getting to my vision. Mistakes and unexpected results were frequently more impressive, symbolic, and beautiful than the original goal. It is the voyage to create from which the best creations emerge. Setting a destination soon seemed to be like pounding the square peg into a round hole. Perhaps many artists do their best work "making things happen", but I found that for me the best approach is to "let things happen". And this fits in nicely with Taoist philosophy I like so much. It is great because I get to be surprised too! It makes art a journey of discovery and adventure for me that keeps me motivated and invigorated and focused to let things happen even more.
I often feel that I am not so much a creator as facilitator of art. It is like I am in tune with something out there... an antennae for an energy that wants expression; I am simply a tool for this energy to manifest. When working on the manipulation aspect in the computer, I often become entranced, lost in the moment, and oblivious to the outside world. Sometimes I get through a piece and think "how the heck did I do that?". It is as if someone else is driving, and I wake up in the end to great art. It is an exhilarating feeling.
"Supereal" is the term I use to describe my final images. I feel the final pieces embody a reality that exists, yet is usually unseen. There is a part of our brain that all our sensory organs feed information to whose job is to edit out 95 percent of what comes through our senses. That means our awareness is limited to 5 percent of that which we are ABLE to perceive. And then there is that which we are unable to perceive at all. The unseeable. The unknowable. We have fleeting moments in our lives whether it is through meditation, psychedelics, sickness, sensory deprivation, NDEs, etc. in which our perception pierces the veil, and a tidbit of a larger reality is revealed to us. But these experiences are transitory, morphing into our reality, and then fading in time until all that remains is memory. The experience was so real, but the memory is a pale washed out image of the actual experience. What my art provides is a clear still look behind the veil that will not fade in our lifetimes. We can gaze into that other place when we choose for as long as we choose. And it will look the same long after our memories have faded. E v e r y t h i n g w e i m a g i n e e x i s t s |
