Tunnel, from the "Cooked" portfolio

About the Photographer

Ferro, Dan

American, b.1950

The Cooked portfolio, Dan Ferro writes, "is a continuation of my exploration of the transitional and the disregarded; the unnoticed and the commonplace." Ferro made the twelve photographs digitally scanning ordinary baking pans and cookie sheets using a flatbed scanner. The resulting images are in one sense documents of the effects of human use, as the object accumulate scratches, discolorations, and other subtle markings. But the images are deliberately abstracted, accentuating the formal qualities of the markings and removing them their original context as kitchen utensils. Moreover, Ferro shapes the digital images according to his personal vision, leaving the fundamental elements intact but making thousands of minute changes on his computer before printing the images. The titles of the images themselves suggest possible metaphorical reference points or propose similarities between the abstract marks and other objects in the physical world, such as flowers or a tunnel. Ferro earned a BA in music at the University of California San Diego before going on to study photography at the Art Center College of Design.