I began taking pictures in 1993 while I was a philosophy major at Florida State University. Within a few months, my pursuance of the craft had overtaken everything else in my life. I found very quickly that I was not as interested in capturing reality as it happened around me as I was in creating moments from out of my own psyche and inner reality in the studio for the purpose of being photographed. I was then, and always, a great admirer of Julia Margaret Cameron, Oscar Rejlander, and Immogen Cunningham, among others. It pleased me that a photograph could be directed the same way a painting is constructed, and I made many tableau studies of my friends and fellow art students. I experimented with nudes and portraits that were marked clearly with my projected nostalgia and dreams. I still find some of those early images the strongest of my body of work.
In 1995 I moved to Jacksonville, Florida to study with Paul Karabinis at the University of North Florida. Paul is a great salt printer and mentor. During that time I was working on a series of historical and mythical portraits. (For instance, staging portraits of St. John the Evangelist, Pandora, Eve, an so forth.) Many of these I printed as salted paper prints, or heavily toned black and whites.
In 1997 I graduated from UNF and was asked to begin teaching a black and white photography course. I got a job working for the studio at Superstock Inc. and taught on the weekends. My own photography slowed to a trickle as I learned the ropes of commercial photography and teaching. It wasn't until a year or two later that I began working on my own portfolio again.
I shot a large series of "Intimate Studies" over the next year. These were portraits of people carefully directed in the studio to portray universals of human conflict and intimacy. I used nudity to lend these studies their timelessness and universality. These works were a beacon to me, leading me back to my own voice, and determining my path into portraiture. Since then I have founded the greatest meaning in the simple gestures and expressions of the subjects I shoot.
2001 found me in Portland, Oregon, simply the best city I have ever had the pleasure to become a part of. I look forward to contributing to this community in my own greatest capacity. Please enjoy my portfolio and feel welcome to contact me if you are interested in purchasing a print, booking a studio session, or simply looking through my portfolio.
Thank You,
Joshua Dommermuth