I am at the beginning of sorting out a theme for a new body of work. I have birds on the brain as the main subject but I’m not sure where I want to go with them. I think ultimately this will be another large-scale image transfer project on either metal or wood, but deciding on materials and display is another matter entirely. First I need to work on imagery.

Today I spent some time reviewing usable bird shots in my archive and creating contact sheets to print out and hang on the wall. My friend Nicole once suggested I do this and I find it the most helpful way to begin visualizing how I want to work with a collection of images. I hang them in my workspace so I can stare at them constantly, and then my half-formed ideas start to evolve. I can already see this will be a photo manipulation project, and I have much more shooting to do. Birds are challenging subjects to work with.