Mostly—though not always—I have to wait a long time before I can see enough beyond the experience I had when shooting the picture to where I can see just the photograph itself. To know if those forms and relationships I was seeing through the viewfinder are really in the photograph and sustain my interest. It’s only then that I can craft an image that resonates with my vision. In this way there are often layers of understanding created for the viewer to discover. And an image arrived at that can sustain interest over time and not give up all of its secrets at a single glance.

It is easy for me to find fascinating subjects here on May Hill and to make beautiful photographs of them, but very hard to make images from those subjects that are about more than just the subjects. mages that speak to me in a visual language that I find can’t always be expressed in words. It is a frustration that there are many wonderful and loved subjects that I’ve never been able to craft into an image that satisfies—an image where the subject doesn’t overwhelm my contribution. Often I have to be content with just experiencing.

David Lebe, on May Hill, January 2010

ON MAY HILL

I started making these pictures in 2004 on May Hill, in the gardens, meadow and woodlands that surround our house and along the trail where I often take my daily walk. These images come from the world just beyond my front door, from the land I know best.

These photographs are interpretations and transformations arrived at after much time working on them in Photoshop. They are not so much inventions, as they maintain a strong connection and trueness to the original subject. Yet it is always the two-dimensional image rather than the original subject that is the more important aspect of the picture for me, though both aspects always matter and reverberate together.

It is the part of the picture I add that makes the picture important to me. Well, perhaps not so much add as reveal. Patterns, relationships, shapes and lines I see hidden in the original scene are the main intent of my efforts—the things I want to share with the viewer. These hidden forms and relationships speak to us as part of a visual language that can often touch deeper, emotional regions of the mind, regions not given to words.

On May Hill, Clematis, 2005, archival pigment print, 14 x 9.25”
Edition 15, P.O.R.