welcome to my little square of the internet. 

information about my theatrical work, past productions, cv and such can by found by clicking on one of the little buttons to your left.

most of this site is dedicated to my career, but i've saved this page for broader thought.  so if you're here for business, click away on your left.  if you're just poking around...well poke around.

cheers
dkw

mostly i'm a travel photographer.  going to new places - places that are completely different from my daily life - reopens my eyes to the world.  taking pictures of that environment helps me remember not only the trip but what i was thinking at that moment.  my momentary perspective on the world.  each picture taken is a hope that i will return to my daily life with new eyes...a bit of the verfremdungseffekt...see my familiar as strange and my strange as familiar. 

baiano

this is in a small town outside of salvador da bahia, in the northwest part of brasil. "baiano" is the word for "someone from bahia."  the colors and lines of this building reminded me of my great aunt's house in georgia and greece all at once.  growing up, i never would have thought my small town auntie's house could look anything like exotic south america.  turns out the exotic isn't so exotic.

speaking of greece...

hydrotic lookout

this is from an early trip to greece.  an island not far from athens.  it's from a point and shoot camera and i snapped it quickly.  the fact it came out as well as it did is credit to kmart's lovely photographic processes and the beauty of the island.

i've been back several times and each time my brain quiets down a bit.  the only vehicles on the island are the municipal trucks - there are six.  everything else is by bicycle (though not much because of the hills), donkey or foot.  tourists come for day trips but rarely stay the night.  i spent about a week watching them come and go.  it was rather like watching an ocean tide on the beach.

bonfim

taken in salvador da bahia, brasil.  this is the church of the bonfim.  the picture's not great, but the building is.  it's not terribly tall but somehow it soars.  churches have a way of doing that.  for me, it's the light bulbs strung on the wire that make this photo one of my favorites.

pictures taken

rio de janeiro, almost too beautiful to be a city.  almost too gritty to be postcard lovely.

walking through the city, we met these two kids.  maybe they were brothers, i wasn't sure.  the older one was about ten or so, the younger looked four or five.  and, for a fee paid to the elder, the younger one would pose as a genuine brazilian child in your travel photo. two people i was with paid the older one a few reals and took several shots.  a little disturbed by the whole concept, i didn't intend to take any photos, so i didn't pay the kid.  but...

watching him watch these two girls take photos of this little boy...the pictures they took are lovely and capture a very picturesque rio.   it's  an accurate record of the city, in one sense, but misses the larger issues that dominate the town and the whole country.  how is it that these kids out on the street making money by selling to tourists the privilege of taking their photo in front of old colonial buildings?  rio's got a large street child population.  i've no idea if these kids lived on the streets, in a favela (a slum), or a luxe apartment in ipanema.  but i'm guessing it wasn't the latter.  rich and poor are literally next door neighbors in brasil.  it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that such a condition causes problems.  i never felt like such a rich american as i did in rio.  but those that are poor there don't seem like those that are poor here.  some how they are more tenacious in brasil.  they seem to fight harder for what they have.

i didn't realize it until after i snapped the photo, but the older boy saw me take out my camera.  after i took the photo, i watched him consider me.  consider asking me to pay for the picture i'd taken.  we left before he said anything.

brazilian films about city life to see: bus 174, carandiru, city of god
be sure to check out the documentary on the city of god dvd.