Once I received a comment from a puzzled amateur photographer who couldn't figure out what point I was trying to make with my images. And why no people couldn't be found in my images.

I know many of my images may look unreal to "orthodox" photographers. But that's exactly what I'm interested in. How can a digitally captured scene be manipulated and processed in the digital darkroom to create something that evokes a sense of exaggerated sentimentality or becomes melodramatic beyond what any reasonable person might have experienced at the time and place capture? The product is basically kitsch.

One of my favorite painters Odd Nerdrum is a self proclaimed kitsch painter and he, as I understand it, denies that his work has anything to do with art. Of course I'm not comparing my work to that of this Norwegian prodigy. I'm merely trying to justify that I like making images that may look unreal and even weird as well as the fact that I have limited integrity as a photographer. My images are not factual evidence of my surroundings.

It's easy to take such liberties with inanimate subjects like houses, bulldozers and waterfalls. But when you start manipulating images of people one will either have to limit the manipulation or be prepared to offend the model and it's friends and family. I hope someday to build up courage to take portraits and manipulate them beyond recognition and hopefully come up with something that pleases my eyes.