August 2014

Steve Eagle has a focus on portraying the best of any given scene. With a background in short animated films, Eagle’s experience includes combining single frames into a continuous moving image. Now focusing his attention on photography, he still incorporates the spirit of animation by compositing several photographs together to produce a single, “ideal” image.

Spending time in the city during the week, Eagle retreats to the Amherst area on weekends and finds much of his inspiration in the countryside of Western Mass. In good weather he goes out with his camera to explore the places where land and water meet, visiting locations like Puffers Pond, Fort River and the Connecticut River. He finds the patterns and reflections of the surface of water to be compelling. When selecting the subject matter for his photographs, Eagle considers the sky, the horizon, the ground, and the feeling of the water.

After choosing a subject, he then takes hundreds of separate photographs – each from a slightly different angle. The images are then blended together, similar to the frames of an animated film. This process allows Eagle to control and adjust the composition, colors, textures and level of details of the final image to create something at once immediately recognizable, yet uniquely special.

Image: DAR State Forest, Goshen MA. 14”x21”