Domestic Arrangements

I began my Domestic Arrangements during March, 2019 while caring for my wife during her six-month illness. While spending the majority of my time at home and very near to her as her caregiver, I began taking stock of my home and surroundings and finding the beauty, mystery, and tragedy within it. I rarely had the time to be distracted from caregiving, and thus I used my iPad expediently to make these images. I could be quick and direct. I could walk by a window or out my back door and see how the light was illuminating (or not) the same things over and over, day in and day out. I could make images in five or ten minutes and still be within my realm as caregiver. While my wife was recovering and sleeping, I could edit my files at her bedside and print my photographs in the adjacent room in our 1000 square foot home. I could make some of my care to be a part of my subject matter, also. But most of all, I could be creative without being absent. And as the series progressed, I discovered new opportunities to push the limits and boundaries of using the iPad in a square format; for some images, it became better to compose them in square and then expand them into a 4:5 ratio. Changing the aspect ratio of some objects did more to reveal the character of some objects around my home and yard than it did to distort them abnormally. And in 2020, I expanded my series by setting up still life scenarios on an 8x8 foot stage in my back yard and photographed these from atop a ladder.