I wanted to include something abut the "Irish Postcards" series because this project is incomplete. My goal is to return to Ireland to take more photographs, especially in urban areas and along the east and south coasts which are missing from the collection.
When I'm lucky enough to be in Ireland or in Northern Ireland I have a camera with me at all times. This is odd because at home I never think to pick up a camera. But over there I seem to want to record as much as possible, to store up memories of people and places I can later revisit from 3500 miles away. When I came back from an extended trip in 1998 my friend Suzanne Mitchell paid me the ultimate compliment after seeing some of my rural landscape photographs: "You're like Constable behind the lens." I know absolutely nothing about photography beyond point and shoot what I compose in the lens.
But with the "Postcards" I was creating a visual a love affair with the island. CJ Pressma scanned my 5x7" snapshots and printed them all as 18x26" images with no color adjustment or correction. I had him keep the original photographs so I could add color for emotional commentary as I remembered being in each separate place. Yes I took a certain degree of poetic license with color but that was part of my response. I colored the images as I wanted them to be. I need to continue that documentation in other areas beyond those selected for the first exhibition. In order to be a true series about a real place I need to go back and shoot at sites I haven't yet documented, especially in urban areas. It can't happen soon enough for me.
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