"With friends, or people that I see on a daily basis, I begin to notice gestures and movements that convey a way of holding ourselves up to being seen. Being comfortable in one's own skin has always fascinated me. What interests me is when someone is caught in an unselfconscious moment. It's a hard thing to see in everyday life, because it happens so rarely that we get to see someone's guard let down. It probably accounts for why I love seeing people read, or sleep, or do the dishes—the moments in which we immerse ourselves in something and slip out of self-consciousness."

Dave Woody, writing for the National Portrait Gallery.

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"The images that I have been making lately are a mix of landscapes and portraits from the Northern Colorado area. I live on the Front Range, along the start of the Rocky Mountains, but I find myself always driving east towards the Plains. There is something comforting in the drive, and the expansive space allows me to deal with a minimalism that complements the portraits. There's not much out there to deal with, pictorially, so the interesting thing is to become attuned to the variations in light and color. The Plains pictures are about the oceanic space and the horizon, the light and the weather.

"The portraits are of kids from the area of Fort Collins, Greeley, Eaton and Ault. Having grown up here, I think about the accumulative effect of living near the plains, of being sensitized to this kind of space and light. I've never experienced the same quality of light, or the same feeling of immensity of earth and sky in any other place I have lived in."