Want More Info?

Artist Statement – (About The Frogs)
For my new frog series, I use a portrait studio and a creative lighting set-up and one or more live frogs. In many cases I’ll use back-grounds painted by a fellow artist. I use realistic-looking miniatures, such as the four-inch drum set in the “Drummer Frog” picture,
to create a lifelike scene. A patient assistant wrangles the frogs into position, as in the “Electric Frog” photograph in which the frog’shands are placed on the tiny guitar strings.
The frog series came about following my time working as a newspaper photographer and exhibiting black and white work. I was look-ing for a new challenge. I found inspiration in the uniqueness of tree frogs and their vivid colors. My first successful photograph was the “Frog Standing on Leaf” picture. A friend helped nudge the frog into position while I stood behind the camera, but on the third try the frog disappeared. “Where’s the frog?” I asked, while still looking through the viewfinder. My friend responded, laughing: “He’s on your camera, standing on the flash.”
Later, I put the frog on a miniature bicycle I found laying around the house, just to see what would happen. Making several attempts over a couple of days, we managed to make the frog look like he was riding a real bike.
I really enjoyed the new challenge. I started looking for exotic and tropical flowers, and scouring specialty shops for miniatures to use as props in the studio. This marked the beginning of the “Frogs on Leaves and Flowers” and “Frogs on Wheels” series’. “Frogs on Wheels” expanded to include pictures of frogs with other miniatures, such as musical instruments and sporting equipment.
The frogs are unpredictable, and many times the final image isn’t what I originally planned. People frequently ask how I get the frogs to stay in place, and the answer is that I don’t. I just need the frog to be still for 1/60th of a second. And in many cases, they’re pho-tographed in motion: the frogs crawl, climb, and jump, as frogs do. I just try to catch them at the right moment. When I’m successful, it looks like trick photography. But they’re not composites or computer-generated images. The frogs are real--and so are the photographs.