Illusions of Reality

Why do I create pictures that are puzzles? The simple answer is "Puzzles make you think." The more complex answer devolves about how puzzles make you think. Puzzles make you examine the world and ask what it is you are really seeing. What are your assumptions and why? What are you ignoring? What lies beneath the surface? Are the issues physiological, that is, physically built into the structure of my brain, or cultural, imbued in me by the society in which I grew up? In order to live in this world, people acquire many modes of behavior that have become automatic because they must deal repeatedly with the same situations. They deal in this way with everyday encounters in order to leave space to think about their lives. Puzzles make you look at the world in a different way, requiring that you cease your preprogrammed behavior and actually look deeply at something. Only then can you begin to analyze what it is you see. I present you with puzzles that may at first appear to be ordinary photographs but which then require you to look more closely and to examine the image to find what is actually being shown to you. These images question the relationship of man made structures to the natural world in which they are found.