It appears that seeing the world is becoming more difficult in spite of an ever increasing number of images. Our hard drives are filled with more and more ‘selfies’ and the natural world often serves as nothing more than an out of focus backdrop lost behind our lives on the internet. 
     After moving from film to digital, the pace of photography has increased while the processing costs have decreased. The flip-side of the equation is that our images are found on multiple hard-drives filled with images that remain to be viewed, sorted and tuned at some future time.
     In my personal journey, my old Brownie was replaced by first, a film Pentax, later to be replace by a Canon 5D that still remains as my primary capture device. After trying one lens after the other, I settled on a few, including a prime 50mm and a macro100mm for most of my photographic needs. I discovered that I had a tendency to shoot full frame (occasionally to my regret), but my images, a product of my mental composition, required little cropping or manipulation.
     My ‘photographer’s eye’ soon led me down the artist’s path and I began working in oils, holding a paint brush to capture my vision. Those ‘full frame’ images—many abstract and impressionist—soon arrived as oil paintings on canvas or panel. The larger canvas sizes I select allowed my immersion into the images that I create. A feeling I had sought from my photos, but seldom achieved.
     In the past, I often worked with pencil, pen and ink, but the satisfaction of creating with oils drove me to overflow the studio and I soon filled the walls of the house with my photos and paintings. But still the journey continues.
     One afternoon in Palm Springs, an Art Store was moving locations and offered close out pricing. I had heard of scratchboard art, and I noticed a simple sharp tool and a panel covered in black ink at 80% off. I took the plunge and my obsession with the precision and detail possible with scratchboard artwork soon pulled me away from the colors on my painting pallet. The graphic nature of scratchboard is akin to the best of Black and White photography. But it is not a photo—not a negative. Scratching through a layer of black ink exposes a layer of white clay hidden beneath. Some of these challenging scratchboards require up to one hundred hours or more to complete.   
      No matter what the medium, I hope my work lets you experience some of what I feel the moment the shutter clicks, with each brushstroke on canvas, or after scratching through the black ink of the scratchboard.

     Sandy Porterfield grew up on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii and received her first "Brownie" camera as a birthday gift when she was 12. Living on a dairy farm as a child and wandering the hills on horseback with her four sisters established an early love of nature and wildlife. She became interested in the fine arts while attending Punahou High School and the University of Hawaii.
      Moving to California, her love of photography accelerated after making the change to Digital photography with the Canon EOS 5D.
       “Previously, the digital format bothered me a little, because of the way it seemed to mishandle light, but the Canon 5D presents a normal and natural look that I just love.” 
     Her weekend outings and a move to the foothills of the Sierras compelled her to ‘capture’ images found all around and her artistic eye can be seen in her photographic compositions.
     In Photography the final product is the print and she uses a professional lab and typically outputs many of the images fairly large (at times 36" by 24") as Giclée prints on canvas. “They look beautiful and capture the look of an oil painting.” 
     After seeing many of her photos output on canvas, her ‘full-frame’ approach to photography led Sandy to picking up a paintbrush—rekindling her love for oils and watercolor. Her nature inspired impressionism can be seen in many of her paintings.
     Occasionally, while painting, she missed the detail and precision of her ‘prime’ lenses. This was soon overcome after discovering scratchboard. By carefully scratching and removing tiny bits of black ink from the surface of the board, the white, derived from a layer of porcelain clay, is exposed in dramatic fashion. The resulting black and white images present an attention to detail and design found in few other art forms.
     “My journey has just begun and although I’m sure to continue my other artistic interests, scratchboard has me hooked... It’s an itch I have to scratch... at least for a while.”

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