Paul Rice brings us stunningly beautiful images that have been rightly called "visual poetry." He views the world with both sides of his brain -- the artistic and the analytic in an elegant balance. His highly developed photographic skills are always at the service of his artistic vision.

His work is compelling and, literally, breathtaking. One cannot merely look at his images in a casual way for one is compelled to stop and savor the depth of passion and beauty that he presents. He evokes in the viewer a deep sense of the mystery and majesty of the world.

Like Ansel Adams, whose work and writings are an abiding influence, Paul Rice is an accomplished pianist as well as a composer. Both his music and his photography are informed by cultivated lyrical and rhythmic qualities.

Paul Rice writes of his work:

"Photography is my approach to the ultimate mysteries of the world. Richard Feynman, the extraordinary physicist observed, 'We can know how Nature works but not why Nature works.' I myself find that emotive art points us in the direction of sensing the why."

The process begins as I experience a scene or a subject. I then visualize an image which expresses the beauty and emotive qualities I feel at that moment. I begin each photograph visualizing the final print in my mind's eye.

There then ensues a process, with critical decisions to be made at each juncture -- choosing the appropriate camera and lens, adjusting the focus, the exposure time -- on through the essential steps of developing and printing, each contributing to the final realization of the image I anticipated. The guiding force throughout the  process is my memory, feeling and internal visualization of that moment in the world when I stood by the camera and released the shutter.

My goal is to capture the mysterious quality of light experienced in that moment of time. The majestic and the small; the sea and the light which sweeps its infinite edge; the gray light of the full moon on a solitary dune in Death Valley;  expressed through the impressionistic departure realized in tones of grey produced by processed silver particles embedded in the emulsion of a Black and White print."

GALLERY