I began making photographs of the landscape in Cape Cod at the age of 16. Growing up on a sparse, thin spit of sand surrounded by ocean anchored my spirit to the land. Driving west to school in San Francisco I was awed by the vastness of the American West. My feelings moving through the landscapes I encountered during this early portion of my career have become the foundation for my work as an artist. After attending university in San Francisco and Boulder, I went on to teach at numerous schools and workshops, mainly in the western US, all the while continuing to explore the social and geographical spaces around me. Looking back I see the evolution of my work and interests mirroring the landscapes and structures I find myself in. I think of myself as a romantic structuralist, a term I coined to describe how I photograph in a very formal straightforward way structurally, which frees the subject up for interpretation, creating an opening for emotion and meaning. My work always seems to return to the ways memory and myth overlay reality, a problem perfectly matched with the camera’s ability to frame the world.
Peter DeLory
