I love watching the sky. I grew up in the Midwest where the Great Lakes meet the prairie and horizons are endless. My parents were pilots, so much of my life was spent exploring the clouds. There I discovered the magic of light and the excitement of technology. I began my practice by photographing the breathtaking vistas I encountered and I remain enthralled with the experience.
I am married to photographer John Goodman. Both of our sons are image makers. In the early 1990s, to be closer to the Maine Photographic Workshop where John taught, we purchased a former lobster pound at the mouth of Medomak River. I started photographing the sun setting over the islands of Muscongus Bay.
Around the same time I attended a number of workshops at the legendary Eastman Kodak Center for Creative Imaging in Camden, where many of the most talented pioneers in digital imaging had come to teach. After CCI closed, I continued taking courses wherever I could find them including Maine Media, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Macworld conferences and Seybold Seminars. For more than a decade I served as a docent and studied art history at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum and seven years ago began guiding tours at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. At the ICA I train with curators and working artists from around the world whose art is as challenging as it is inspirational.
I am interested in photographing the spectacle of scattered sunlight. I layer physicality and dimension into the images with the intention of inspiring memories, impressions and emotions that will kindle feelings of wonder. I shoot with an iPhone and enhance the image with optical filters. I also experiment with glass artifacts salvaged from the sea to disrupt the light and create disorienting illusions. Etched by the forces of time and tide these found ‘lenses’ become viewing devices that illuminate visible and invisible worlds – creating mysterious narratives and richly textured images.
Jeanne Goodman
