When Nothing is Everything

I never met David J. Carol, even though for years we lived just a few miles apart on Long Island. Judging by some of his photographs, we shopped at the same supermarket and walked the same beach.

He is a photographer I admire, and the only person who has managed to put into words exactly how I feel about this work. So rather than write a statement of my own, I’ll let him say it.

I try to photograph nothing, even when something is there. I want to find the moment, the place, the thing that is truly unimportant, and make it everything. The closer I get to this, the more of myself is revealed. [...]

For me one of the biggest challenges is to take a picture of nothing and make it into something. I'm not nearly as interested in the obvious, on the other hand, what I find interesting is usually pretty obvious to me. So I guess what I'm saying is that I have less interest in what I perceive is interesting to others and much more interest in what's interesting or obvious to me.