I'm a photographer. I'm also a director, a CGI artist, an animator, a VFX artist, and the guy doing all of the post. Thirty years behind the camera, learning every tool myself so the eye that imagines the shot is the same one that builds it. No handoffs, nothing lost in translation.
When I met Molly, I saw a horse whisperer. A dark sky rolling over an endless Montana plain, and one woman at the center of it, bound to a beast that answers only to her. One problem: she'd never been on a horse in her life.
So I photographed her in my Connecticut studio in the middle of winter. Then I built Montana. The horses, the landscape, the light that only exists for 20 minutes on a good day. No travel, no location fees, no praying for weather. Just the image I saw the day I met her.
Yes, I use AI, rendered privately in a closed system, using real human performance, real image capture, and hands-on craft. AI is a tool, never the author. I used it to design this logo, this poster, a working CGI prop from nothing but a sketch, to replace her wardrobe, to build the world behind her, and to turn this still photograph into motion. But it's the human at the center of every frame that makes the work believable and ownable.
Underneath all the digital artistry in my work, there's one constant: a moment of real emotion captured on camera. Portraiture has always been the foundation of my work. Some of these places exist, some I created. The part that matters, the person, the emotion, the connection between real people, is never generated. It's photographed.
Hi, I'm Dale, and this is the infamous Starlight Falls Motel. I got tired of looking for the perfect location, so I built this one myself. Oh, and it's always available. Try that with a real location.
