ron lussier / artist's statement

I photograph the remnants of what people leave behind. My eyes are drawn to small details, textures and smudges, a drip stain on a wall. I capture the beauty of these unintentional signatures, and I imagine lives of the people who left them.

I usually seek out-of-the-way and abandoned places to photograph. I've shot miner's cabins in the Owens Valley, back alleys in Kyoto, abandoned schoolhouses in Kansas, and truckstops in the Brazilian rain forest. I prefer remote locations because they provide a glimpse of lives lived apart from the mainstream of humanity.

I photograph in color because that's the way I see. I love black and white photography, but I feel that good color photography has more to offer the viewer. It is also much more challenging, providing the photographer with more dimensions with which to succeed (or fail).

I process the image using a variety of techniques to achieve a print that accurately represents my vision of the original scene. I produce each print individually in my Sausalito studio, using museum-quality archival pigments on heavyweight paper. Each image may be printed in up to three editions, each in a different size. Each edition is limited to 30 prints and up to 3 artist's proofs.

ron lussier  
21 february 2004