The Vanitas group expresses my long-standing thread of photographic interest in history, the inevitable passage of time and the impermanence of all things.  This theme is at the heart of photo essays such as those dealing with old Route 66 (1986), the Great Plains (1992) and the project series "In Shadows Ancient" (1983-89), which depicted street life and monumental archeological ruins in Mexico, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Turkey and Rome.  But the color, up-close still life was a new and extending mode of expression for me, so vastly different from the social documentary "in-the-field" nature of the earlier work.  In this initial digital work, the "field" is my kitchen, with the inanimate subjects illuminated by overhead skylights.  Many of the works were produced in 2004 and 2005, but additional photographs were added in 2006 and the project has taken on an ongoing nature.