I have enjoyed live music performaces from about 1998 to the present. One of my most prolific photographic endeavors is to capture color images of such performances. I enjoy the challenge of using existing light—typically stage lights which are incandescent lights of varying colors. Most of the time, the lighting changes continuously throughout a performance, and the lights are often quite dark for anything but the fastest film. I started using a flash with a zoom lens to capture candid close-up shots of the performers as well. My ultimate goal is to be able to capture images that represent what I experience at a performance.

The first subtle theme I discovered was one I like to call "uneasiness." I was fascinated by images from Garry Winogrand such as in his compilation, The Man in the Crowd: The Uneasy Streets of Garry Winogrand and although I greatly admire his work, I am exploring a slightly different theme.

I created a number of ways to explain what I thought I was trying to do. When I shoot, I look for scenes which produce a feeling of uneasiness in myself—perhaps an instinctive fear response which I don't have conscious access to—and I try to capture the scenario accurately enough so the image itself can recall that feeling. I sometimes explain this theme by starting from the image and suggesting that the viewer subtract out all the elements which are familiar, and what is left is the uneasyness. When I selected images for the "Serotonin," I said that the images capture the fleeting glimpses of hallucinations experienced when one is overtired and high levels of the brain chemical serotonin are being produced.

In all, these images produce a primitive feeling of danger and a cause for heightened awareness in myself and I am interested to see if that is true in others as well.

Occasionally, I will attempt to capture the feel for a location. I concern myself with trying to accurately reproduce the feeling of space. I am more interested in capturing a mood or a personality than I am in capturing the entire experience. My goal is that if a viewer of the image were to visit the subject location that they would immediately recall my image as their most similar experience.

I think all photographers attempt to capture the extremes of the human experience, particularly the positive ones. I'm no different and will occasionally take pictures of "pretty things" if the mood strikes me.