Documenting life in the Pennsylvania/Maryland/West Virginia Appalachian region and northeast Ohio has been Carl’s passion for more than 50 years.

Film making/audio-visual

While photography and text are the primary media for this work, Carl also delves into film making, going back to the 1970s-1990s, when he produced numerous multi-image programs.

His more recent film making projects have included The Story Quilter’s Threads, a documentary about the Ashtabula County, Ohio, barn quilt trail, and We Lived on Oak Street, the story of Finnish migration to the Lake Erie port of Ashtabula, Ohio. “I strive to create lyrical films that devoid of special effects, rapid-fire presentation and filler that permeate so much modern film making. I am inspired by the straight-forward storytelling of documentary master and West Virginia native Pare Lorentz (1905-1992). Explore more about his film making.

Carl’s short-film work includes “West Virginia Backroads,” based upon his articles for Goldenseal magazine. More than 100 of his text/photo packages have been published in Goldenseal, a quarterly published by the West Virginia Department of Art, Culture and History. He has been a contributor since 1985 and his Backroads feature has been a part of the magazine since 2004.” Explore Goldenseal work.

Photography

He purchased his first SLR as a high school graduation present in 1972 and has been experiencing life through a camera viewfinder ever since. His work examines the impact of man and culture on his environment, whether the shores of Lake Erie or mountains of Appalachia. “I count among my inspirations the late National Geographic photographer Volkmar Wentzel, who lived in Aurora, W.Va., a short distance from my grandparent’s farm, and Richard W. Brown, a master rural landscape photographer from New England.”

Carl was a professional wedding & portrait photographer for many years, and continues to apply that training to his documentary work. Inspired by the work of the great railroad photographer O. Winston Link, Carl’s Night Passages series explores historic and threatened structures, which are photographed at night. Explore on Night Passages.

Carl is listed on the Artist’s Register of the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History.