I live in Chenango county, or “Upstate.”  My subject is there, and my definition of it is always new.  My subject is whatever I'm looking at. I prefer to be free rather than encumbered by expectations.  40 years later, these pictures are a body of work.

My son Spence, a painter, says my images wait for me: "The medium here is the visual reality of rural america. Dad employs his surroundings as content and character, and he moves freely through this world with his camera as a painter moves with paint. It is painting, and it is performance."

Painters talk about making their best work when the mind stops and third hand takes control. The noise quiets, and intuition reigns.  My experience of making every picture in this show is the common thread that joins them.  Each presented itself to my intrusion as an opportunity to see it and record it specifically, and on this stage, the moment’s decisions create the work.

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."  T.S. Eliot

Come to my talk at the Clifford Gallery on Wednesday , April 24th at 4:30 pm and I'll share some of my thoughts about my photographs and process.

After graduating from Colgate, I received my MFA in photography from the Yale School of Art and have been making photographs for 40 years. Many of these prints are from my recent Retrospective exhibition at MWPAI in Utica, NY.

My photographs are in the permanent collections of Colgate's Picker Art Gallery, Munson-Williams Proctor Art Institute, Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection Yale University, Colby College Museum of Art, The Parrish Art Museum, Addison Gallery of American Art, Lightwork Collection Syracuse University, The Museum of the City of New York, and private collections.

@tommybrownpictures

www.tommybrownpictures.com