The America that Norman Rockwell painted did—and still does—exist. I know because I’ve spent the last twenty years capturing these spontaneous moments with my camera.

     As a photojournalist, I’ve documented death, destruction, and human despair. And of course there is a need for that. But there’s also a need for the other perspective. 

    Maybe it’s because I am older or am now a father, but I realize, and want my children to know, what life is and isn’t. While they need to understand what is wrong in this crazy world we live in, I want them to focus on what is right and what is possible. I want them to embrace the simple moments that can and do happen every day – those Rockwell moments that could be so easily overlooked if we aren’t paying attention.

    Although extremely popular among the American people, Rockwell’s work was often dismissed by critics.  During a time when the American art establishment was moving toward modernism, abstraction, and expressionism, they claimed Rockwell’s work was old-fashioned, too idealistic, or sentimental and nostalgic.  Rockwell was often accused of creating moments that didn’t exist - or, as one critic alleged - for  “creating an America that never was and never will be.”

    Rockwell disagreed and once said:  “Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed.”

    I’ve always loved to photograph ordinary people doing ordinary things.  And I’d often captured moments that onlookers would describe as “Rockwell moments.”  Always a fan of Rockwell’s, I took that as a great compliment.  It wasn’t until I visited the Norman Rockwell Museum in the early 1990s that I learned there were some who were critical of Rockwell’s work.  At the same time I realized I had a body of work that disproved critics’ claims that Rockwell created moments that had not existed.   It was shortly after that visit that I decided to pursue a project to capture spontaneous “Rockwell moments” that celebrate the ordinary. The end result is this project.  I hope you enjoy it.