ARTIST'S STATEMENT

My photographs offer a view created over a 30-year span. I loved making these images while I went on many travels, wandered through old houses and cemeteries and met a bunch of interesting people. These images were all made with the classic 4x5 view camera and black and white film. The technique is slow and cumbersome but it suits me, the formalism reminds me of classical music, which I also enjoy, and the subtle black and white lyric tones of a print is like a quartet by Schubert.

My father, Frank Agar, studied with Minor White and Ansel Adams and even photographed Edward Weston on a field trip to Carmel. Later my father, mother and me, just a baby, returned with proofs and prints for Weston. He looked at them, smiled, and said, “Fuzzy, aren’t they?”

I grew up in a house filled with photographs, paintings, drawings, sculpture, and books from all over America and around the world. My parents dragged me off to see black and white foreign films with English subtitles. I am forever grateful for this environment and vision they gave me. I try to continue this work this same spirit.