Artist Statement

Ned has been interested in photography since he learned to develop and print black and white film in the basement of a friend in his early high school days in Clay Center.

The photo impressions often have a hand-painted quality. Enhanced lighting elements and bold colors are intended to relay how being in the scene made the photographer feel, the way impressionist paintings carry an emotional as well as visual message.

Most are of common objects and scenes. He usually avoids sunsets, flowers, babies, mountain vistas and animals, all of which have intrinsic beauty.  The focus has been on finding an emotional visual message in the color and patterns of common, natural subjects that haunt the background of our lives.  Things that never turn our heads.

"Nothing is more common probably than grass. And I realized one day that I had been drawn to photographing the shapes and colors of grass without ever understanding why. All I know is I enjoy the images.”

Not true photographs, the work is more impressionist and can fairly be considered more of a picture that a photograph. All these pictures began as hand-held snapshots. No effort was put into making a technically superior photo.

The viewer may or may not like these "fauxtographs" at first, but they grow on you. "I experience them the same way."

The photos are all taken around Clay County. Ned has been editor of the Clay Center Dispatch since 1969.