My name is Joe Russo and I’m your photographer.

I remember when I was 6 or 7 years old, I used to disassemble clocks. Old. Brass. Oily gears and metal springs, classic metal timekeepers that time had forgotten. On the outside these things weren’t much to look at. The brass had started to turn a minty green, patterned scuff marks that no amount of polish would ever buff out littered the outside, the glass faces scratched through years of abuse. What held my interest were the inner workings. I didn’t just see the gears and springs held to work endlessly in their brass encased prison, I saw what was a piece of precision fitting clockwork machinery. Every formed piece of metal had it’s specific place, it’s particular function, working seamlessly within the constraints of it’s rounded layout. As I took out each gear, polished it back to it’s youthful brilliance, and replaced it properly in it’s construct, I began to appreciate the art that was involved in making each clock I worked on. It was a thing of beauty to see the revival of the pile of slightly corroded and imprecise pieces of metal strew across my bedroom floor, back into a fully formed gatekeeper of time. It was during those days that I first learned to look past the mundane face of a clock and see the artistry that was locked inside. I craved to create something that was equally as beautiful. I needed my own form of art.

By the age of 10, I had tried my hand at every type of artistic endeavor I could convince my parents to fund. I would constantly make a mental image of  new things I experienced and tried to replicate the colors, feelings, emotions back from the realm of a visceral memory into a tangible moment I could document.

Drawing. Painting. Sketching. Sculpting. Unfortunately, as badly as I wanted to transform memories into pictures, my brain and my hands couldn’t agree on a method. Picasso I was not. I found my passion in the written word instead. I found I could use the contents stored between the cardboard of a dictionary to paint a blank piece of paper into my own masterpiece.

As much as I loved painting a picture with words instead of stylish lines and depth of field, I still had the urge to create something visual, something that didn’t need a context to describe. Something that on it’s own, with no outside hint of it’s interpretation, could elicit the essence of a captured moment.

As fate would have it, one morning while munching on some Captain Crunch and chuckling at Garfield, I happened on a for sale ad in the Sunday paper. “Great camera package for sale. Comes with camera, lens, camera case, and accessories. Great for a beginner that wants to capture the art of the world.” If there was ever a case to be made for providence, this was it.

I convinced my parents through some Enron accounting and flowery prose that the $125 price tag was a bargain for a piece of machinery that would help me capture the art of the world. I think I might have promised to mow the law for the entire summer as well, but by the end of the week I was rapid firing the shutter while viewing the world from a completely new perspective. As I tore into the glued paper binding on the first developed roll of film, the lifeblood of all those captures moments came rushing back as I thumbed through the last week of memories.

The world was now my playground and through the lens, any emotion I wanted to store forever, I only had to bring along my camera. It was photography that finally allowed me to express all of the pent up art that was clawing to get out.

I found my love of art at an early age. I’ve nurtured the love for making art through the years, and now I want to share it with you.

I hope you enjoy the images I see through the lens of my life.