Portfolios Books Events Press About Steve
Galleries Newsletters Notecards Inquiries
Home
© 2000 - Text and Photographs - Stephen E. Strom
From 1980 to 2001, the overwhelming majority of my work comprised interpretations of landscapes aimed at evoking in the viewer an invitation to explore multiple rhythms manifest in the landscapes: sculptural, color and temporal. Throughout that period, I recorded images on color transparencies. In 2002, I acquired the first of several SLR digital cameras. By exploiting the enormous range in sensitivity afforded by CCD and CMOS detectors and their associated electronics, I was able to extend the sensibilities I brought to landscape interpretations to the often rapidly changing macro world of flora. These images, which evolved during the period 2002-2006, are at once recordings of the interplay of light, color and shape, and evocations of the delicacy and sensuality of desert flora: the translucent white of prickle poppies; the silky white of primroses and mariposa lilies; the buttery yellow-white of yucca blossoms; seductive purple-white daturas; the waxy deep yellow, orange and red cactus flowers; the stark beauty of agaves seared by grass fires; and the life-affirming patterns manifest in new agave growth emerging from their charred bases.