This series, Chasing Paradise, draws upon my work as a fine artist in painting, as I create stylized photographs of flowers and plants found in my rural environment. Through light, shadow, and color, each carefully edited image echoes an altered reality of both truth and illusion. A photograph captures a moment in time and my goal is to transcend that notion into a photograph that provokes a moment reminisced, much like a painting. I endeavor to intertwine both interpretation and emotion into each photograph. I hint at the physicality of a painter’s brushstroke through a heightened visual awareness by both focusing and blurring the image I see through my lens. As I continue to stalk nature, the camera reveals the world beyond what my naked eye can see. It is this extraordinary symbiotic relationship between me and my camera that inspires and motivates my creative vision in photography.