ARTIST'S STATEMENT

I did not study photography because I wanted to find my own way, and that turned out to be subjects and places rarely if ever visited by other photographers. A prime example is the image below which I made leaning against the guardrail of an interstate highway. The highway was elevated over what was once ground level and so put me near the tree canopy, something almost impossible to do any other way.

I felt compelled to take the trouble to photograph with a 4" x 5" view camera in a difficult and slightly dangerous location because of what was to me a stunning composition: the pointillist buds layered over the silver branches of maple trees. I returned to this location in Weston, Massachusetts and to another in Millbury at Exit 11 again and again for over 10 years, almost invariably in the early morning during the spring.

What I felt from this image and others like it compelled me to look for other images that gave me a similar feeling. I eventually realized that it was texture that I was looking for and out of ensembles of texture and color I would make my compositions.

—John Wawrzonek, November 2017