For the past three elections, I have revisited my portfolio titled The State of America, which won Talent of the Year(2017) from the London Creative Competition, by adding images and removing others. This election year was no different. Political motivation inspires my need to create art. In the past, I explored the "Me Too" movement protests with women wearing "Pussy Hats," Religion, the American dream, the border, and school shootings, which are all social issues I addressed using miniature, toy, scale-model railroad figurines to create dioramas inspired by historical events. 

I find the practice therapeutic and relaxing. It begins with brainstorming concepts. These concepts must pass the "Can I recreate this with a sense of realism?" test. Recreating the concepts coincides with the problem-solving phase of how to make sets and props on such a tiny scale. Then, I need to find and source the figures with relatable poses on a 1:87 scale. I often have to amputate and reattach limbs in different positions.  Then, I edit the list down to 8 or so images to create a diorama. When it comes to actually building the set, I find it meditative to play. I see a similar relation to when I played with action figures and dolls with my sister as children when we would recreate family issues and work through the problem in our own ways. This play is no different, but instead, I use incredibly tiny dolls and big, significant issues. 

Art, at its core, is about solving problems. It's about engaging with and becoming comfortable with the situation. But it's not just the artist who does this. By inviting the viewer to do the same, we can collectively find answers to the issues. Art is a conversation, and everyone has a part to play.

In my revisit of The State of America project, I explore four issues that I feel were at the forefront of the news: the January 6th Insurrection, the homeless crisis, Women's reproductive rights, and Fast food prices/wages. The January 6th Insurrection is a sub-portfolio since it has multiple images but not enough to be a stand-alone portfolio.

2020- The American dream as we once knew it is dead. Besides the constant threat of war from North Korea, the US is still racially divided 53 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed. There is a major culture shift happening in our nation with women and men exposing sexual misconduct in the workforce. The Education system is flawed in that students are taught solely how to fit into corporate America as cogs in the machine. Americans are not learning about their rights as citizens. Just as facts are dismissed as fake news and have herded the people of America into a dumbing down of our society. These things and others have caused our role as a super power within the world to change.

Fifty-three years after the Civil rights act was passed there are racial riots happening in the streets of the United States of America. We have watched far too many dash-cam or body-cam videos of police officers using excessive force on dark skinned individuals that ended in the worse possible outcome.

Stemming from the #me_too movement, women and men have come forward to expose how prevalent sexual misconduct has been in the workplace. Since that, allegations of sexual misconduct have hit almost every industry, including 15 women who have accused the president of misconduct over a 20-year period.

We as a society have had our basic logic turned upside down by the term of “fake news.” If a story doesn’t fit the agenda of the subject, a quick denial and label of fake news is all that is necessary to stop the story from gaining traction in the media outlets.  Thus making society question it’s own level of knowledge. Individual thoughts and creativity are not encouraged. And in turn, kids are being prepped to be cogs in the machine of corporate America. Americans do not know their rights. Civics is not taught in most schools anymore and people are not aware of how the government works around them.

The United States of America is suffering at its core. For many, the state of our country is measured on how well we live out the American dream. But what is the American dream anymore? For many it was a time when white males could prey on young women for sexual pleasure. Or was it a time when lunch counters were separated by the color of your skin? Was America great when our education system ranked top in every subject or when we placed at the bottom as recently polled? Was America great when space exploration was at the forefront of our growth? Or are we better off with a large segment of society believing the Earth is flat? Before the US can be the superpower it once was, we must come together to build up the core structure of our society and strive to treat each other better and learn about our government in order to overcome the deliberate oppression of its people.

The January 6th Insurrection portfolio is purposefully non-basis. The dioramas represents the events that unfolded that day and how I would problem-solve to recreate them.

Using unconventional toys to re-create the dire situation in the nation's Capitol, the dioramas and the images made from them should open dialog based on the incongruent nature of mixing toy figurines with serious subject matter. While the images are not exact replicas of any photos from that day, I studied many pictures from different viewpoints and tried to invoke the energy of the moment. I chose not to add additional sarcasm to the images, which would be putting my political preference on the images. Enough hate has already been brought into the political arena, dividing society, so everything has become polarized. Instead, think of what has led to this and why? What do we do to protect our democracy as the founding fathers intended while reinterpreting the Constitution for a modern age?

Art, at its core, is about solving problems. It's about engaging with and becoming comfortable with the situation. But it's not just the artist who does this. By inviting the viewer to do the same, we can collectively find answers to the issues. Art is a conversation, and everyone has a part to play.

“Freedom Is”

Portraits of everyday people voicing their opinions via a chalkboard about America and what freedom is.

"Do I celebrate Independence Day when there is nothing to celebrate this year?" vs. "we need more God in this country to remove the immorality that's taken over" were two statements that were heard leading up to July 4th, 2022. The country is more divided than ever; it showed this year.

When I started seeing posts online by people who did not feel like celebrating the birth of our nation's freedom after the Supreme Court's recent rulings on women's reproduction rights. On a national level, they had removed a woman's right to choose for her own body and gay rights, and contraception would be next on the court's list of objectives. This also added to my desire to help everyday people add their voice to the narrative, whether that voice was liberal or conservative.

Pre-July 4, I began the project by shooting people in my garage studio with a black backdrop and made these shots black and white images. And then spent Jul 4th photographing neighbors who participated in the neighborhood "rebellion parade" It's rebellious since the city will not give official permission to have the parade on its mile route. I asked my neighbors to participate in the project during the ice cream social after the parade ended at Dave and Mindy's house.

How do we move from extreme polar opposites to a more centrist pendulum swing? We will always have two sides to the coin, but we must find a way to compromise and work together toward a common goal. This is what was so beautiful about photographing my neighbors on Jul 4th this year. We do not all agree on issues facing the nation, but we did all agree the government is not running as it should and that both sides are to blame. The insurrection of Jan 6th did not help much either. But for the most part, we all voiced our opinions on what "America is" and what "freedom is" peacefully and respectfully. No fights broke out. No one questioned anyone else's opinion. Only one man under his breath stated he felt more religion was needed to banish the immorality that is ruining the country. And he would not participate in my project. I thought he was talking directly to me as an openly gay man, but maybe I was looking too far into his statement. Ultimately, he was welcome to voice his thoughts but chose not to.

I'm sure some people held back their true feelings and took a more global approach to their writing. And others didn't hold back at all. Unlike politicians, people who talk to each other can see each other as caring individuals and meet somewhere in the middle. Like in small neighborhoods like mine, communities and small towns where everyone knows each other, they have figured out what's missing from our country. The ability to see each other as people.

*If you are interested in participating, please contact Todd at Mrtoddbradley@gmail.com

**If you are a gallery or museum wishing to exhibit, please contact todd by email at MrToddBradley@gmail.com

note: There are currently 34 images

The mysterious beauty of pre-Christian paganism has always drawn me in. There is something inherently enchanting about the gods and goddesses, the myths and legends, and the rituals and ceremonies our ancestors once practiced. Like Brigman, I sought to create visually stunning and emotionally evocative images, using light, shadow, and natural compositions to develop a sense of depth and mystery.

Each photograph in this portfolio tells a story, inviting the viewer to a world where pre-Christian paganism's gods and goddesses are still alive. In one image, we see Odin sitting on a stone throne with his Ravens, Huginn and Muninn, his eye gazing intently into the distance as if searching for something lost. In another, Frigg is depicted as a serene and influential figure, her long hair flowing like her cloak as her clairvoyance receives a message from the seashore.

Yet despite their otherworldly nature, these images are also deeply rooted in the natural world. The lush, verdant landscapes and wild, untamed vegetation that populate these photographs remind us of our connection to the earth and the cycles of life and death integral to pagan mythology.

Ultimately, this portfolio will serve as an invitation to rediscover the rich and complex world of pre-Christian paganism and find inspiration and meaning in the legends and myths that have shaped our collective consciousness for centuries.

War Stories I Never Heard

War Stories I Never Heard explores the impact of discovering a loved one’s World War II military stories after his death, and the longing for deeper personal connection with him after he is gone. 

My grandfather Raymond Bradley was just 21 years old when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 to fight Hitler’s Nazi regime that was taking over the world. Hitler had been trying to create a superior race by killing the “unfit,” including Jews, the physically/mentally handicapped, and homosexuals. I am gay and I recently discovered a small percentage of my ancestry is Ashkenazi Jewish. Had I been living in 1944, my life would have been in danger; my grandfather was fighting for me 75 years ago without his knowing it.

My parents divorced in 1976 when I was 7. Up until then, I had a great relationship with my grandfather. After the divorce, I only saw him a few times, once shortly before he passed in 2008 at 85 years old. That was a terrific visit. Grandpa never talked about the war, however I do remember him taking me into his garage to show me his gun from the Army. I was 7-ish and gay. I wanted nothing of it. Today, I would give anything to have that day back to talk about the Second World War with him.

After he passed, I was given a small box of photographs and mementos of my Grandpa Ray. I knew he had fought in Normandy, but it never registered as anything important. But all of a sudden, holding his stripes and medals in my hands, I needed to know about his time in battle.

I began to research where he was the morning of June 6, 1944, D-Day, and what his Army mission was on that infamous day. I wanted to know about the amphibious engineer badges included with his things. First I asked my family, but no one knew anything beyond that he was a cook. Although my cousin Chris had been told by Ray himself that he was a trained sharpshooter, he also thought Grandpa might have been pulling his leg. 

After asking my family, I turned to the Army for information. Being a cook was not to be discounted as a lesser role, I was told by an Army veteran and World War II historian. The Army Amphibious Engineer units worked as a team to complete their mission. Grandpa had to learn every aspect of being an amphibious engineer in the 6th Engineer Special Brigade so that if everyone else in his unit was killed, even the cook could complete the mission. In the case of my grandfather, the mission was delivering ammunition to the front line.

Due to the limitednumber of photos from D-Day and bits of information written on the backs of photos he saved. I created dioramas to fill in the gaps and recreate scenes from photographs my grandpa had kept.I tell about his time serving in the Army during WWII through still-life arrangements of memorabilia, photo collages, and our genetic DNA codes, which symbolize our family lineage. I establish a timeline from his arrival in England for training—leaving his newly pregnant wife, Mary Louise, back home in Wayne, Michigan—and his time quartering with a wealthy family, the Firths, who are threaded through the story. I follow him as he serves at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, on D-Day, his life at camp, and finally his discharge and return to Mary Louise and his baby, Bonnie, in the United States. I include what happens after and how, nine months later, my father was born, and three years later, my Uncle Dale.

Project facts:
• Omaha Beach diorama size—2 feet x 2 feet.
• Diorama scale—1:87 (plus other scale sizes for depth) Omaha Beach for the war shots.
• Seventy-five hand-painted men are used to mark the D-Day 75th anniversary in 2019.
• I pay homage to photographers Robert Cappa and Robert Sargent by recreating tableaus of their original photographs in my Omaha Beach diorama.

• I had vehicles 3-D printed if I could not find an available model to build.
• I bought type-C WWII rations that contained Camel cigarettes, the brand my grandfather smoked in 1944.

• In the shrapnel still life, I pricked my fingers for the blood to represent the thousands of young men lost.
• The sand in the shrapnel image is from Omaha Beach in Normandy.
• The DNA codes, replacing my grandfather in some of the images, are the Y-chromosome code that I share with my grandfather, dad, and Uncle Dale.

Bug Transport

Miniature scale model figures were what I turned to when embarking on a project to explore my child-like mind and not be so serious all the time, to expand exploratory thoughts within my imagination. Studies have found that being serious all the time will lead to being less productive, influence your ability to bond with other people, missed opportunities and just missing out on life.

The Bug-Transport project is about the viewing things differently.  By nurturing my adventurous imagination, draw outside the lines per say and just see were it goes. It’s about adding a bit of fantasy into my reality. It’s about lightening my load. It’s about being playful, and happy. And not being so serious all the time. It is based on the silly thought of; What if bugs were the size of livestock and we road them around for transportation?

1:87 scale models were used in place of real people to further the playful aspect and create ambiguity within the narrative. Real bugs were used to add to the adventure. They give a new perspective to the viewer by magnifying the detail of these amazing creatures to study up close without fear.  

The Protectors of Magical Seeds

“It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in ’em,” said Captain Jim. “When I ponder on them seeds I don’t find it nowise hard to believe that we’ve got souls that’ll live in other worlds. You couldn’t hardly believe there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone colour and scent, if you hadn’t seen the miracle, could you?”

― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables series

The pods are the great protectors of the magic they possess inside ... the seed. Seeds that hold the DNA blueprint for the entire life of the plant. Its whole life! That is magical. Before the seeds release from the withered shell, the pod holds them tight, protecting them from the elements while they develop. Then, when all the precise conditions come together, the ideal amount of warmth, water, light, and nutrient-rich soil, the tiny seeds will release, germinate, and grow. The pod decomposes, feeding the seed, and the circle of life continues.

Using Stephen Shore’s concept of still time where “the content is at rest and time is still,” I am preserving that particular moment of the decay process, where the pods have just released these magic seeds. This is when the pods reveal their true strength, hardness and valor. Sometimes they are sinister shapes akin to medieval torture devices. In front of my lens, they become whimsical guardians, the protectors of magical seeds.

Todd Bradley

Title: “From Here: Not From Here”

I began “From Here: Not From Here” during Covid, on my daily walk with my dogs around the neighborhood. To keep active, I would steal flowers on my walk to photograph with my Digital, medium, and large format cameras during confinement. I needed something beautiful to focus on, rather than all the depressing news on the TV every day. While researching and cataloging the floral names, I discovered that almost none of the flowers I picked in my neighborhood were originally from the Southern California region.

I was shocked to learn that over 1,000 non-native plants have established roots and made California their home while taking over many regions’ native plants by over 50%. While most Californians welcome diversity in forms of race and ethnicity, Bio-diversity is a different matter. Most California residents, let alone the world, do not even know that they contribute to the threat of global food security and biodiversity loss.

Adding non-native plants to our supply is not a problem you and I created. Still, we take part in it with landscaping and daily by consuming fruits and vegetables that are not grown here, and even more troubling is that Americans generally will not consume blemished food. We do not want it if it is not perfect, which is also valid with yard landscaping plants. And this is a problem you and I will have to clean up or at least start to put a dent into the education about sustainability and agriculture, including local parks and forestry and residential landscapes and gardens and what we grow in them.

Thinking we can create something better than nature that fits our needs rather than adapting to mother Earth is at the root of our issue. My project should make us stop and question our native surroundings because they may not always be there in the future. We try to fix our problems and replace things. Still, often it is too late, or we choose the wrong item. One exception to this case would be the famed photographer and his wife, Sebastião and Lélia Salgado. They replanted an enormous rainforest in Brazil that was stripped bare of trees. Humans have also moved indigenous native plants to other areas around the globe to provide for our growing desire for things like palm oil or almond milk discovered to decimate the local native habitats and the wildlife that depended on them.

After the Spanish invasion, in what is now California, explorers began to bring new species of vegetation marketed as new and better ways of gardening and growing crops. These new species took off as exotic, exciting, and offered perfect yields if given fertilizers, and they thrived in our climate. The problem is that they thrive too much and have taken over, drowning out our native plants that did not need fertilizers or pesticides. These chemicals have proven detrimental to the environment and, more importantly, the Earth. Soil has become dependent on these chemicals to grow crops making it baron otherwise.

We should all be asking at our grocer and garden nurseries; where is the native area of this plant? If it is not from where you live, do not buy it. Remember supply and demand; if we demand local and native, that is what they will supply. On a larger scale, we can ask county supervisors to plant native plants and trees when replanting existing greenery or when new parks go in. The one original native flower I found was on my property, the Mexican Bird of Paradise (Caesalpinia Pulcherrima); it is native to the southwest region of the USA. Another botanical I used in this project; is Eucalyptus; it is abundant in San Diego but does not come from here. The Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) is an Australian native tree brought to California in 1850 in seed envelopes purposed to grow more trees for wood for homes but ended up being unusable for this woodworking because the Blue Gum variety brought to California would split.

“From Here: Not From Here” showcases combining native and non-native Botanicals. In these images, I took flowers and reworked them repeatedly into new arrangements that explore the relationship between native and non-native botanicals, the passage of time, and the decay that comes with it, representing the decay that non-native plants can cause to a region. While using locally sourced botanicals, I stole from my neighborhood and had difficulty sourcing native plants. I tracked down seeds from Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano (Native seeds are also tricky to find as loads of California wildflowers seeds sold online are, in fact, non-native!). I grew my flowers to photograph and compared how they appeared in analog versus digital photography.

With extra time on my hands from Covid-19, I revisited my forgotten analog film cameras to pass the time and visit my old photographic friends. In between deeper personal projects, I creatively default to an offshoot of my Seed Pod Project, “The Protectors of Magical Seeds.” Creating new floral still-life arrangements was my goal. I took flowers, recombined them, created otherworldly specimens, and then placed them in seedpod vases, mainly using the Eucalyptus pods and California black Oak (Quercus Kelloggii) Acorns due to their perfectly adapted vase shapes. Upon discovering the botanicals I chose from my area in San Diego are non-native and not beneficial to the environment, I felt my project could educate. It could also simultaneously promote the use of native plants by reintroducing their beauty as equal if not superior to the non-native varieties sold to us at big box stores and other nurseries.

Using fresh and dehydrated flowers with the analog film that had slowly deteriorated over 15 years in my refrigerator, possibly almost discarded to a landfill, seemed the right combination for this project. I wanted to look at microfloral arrangements freshly while simultaneously exploring analog photography after this 15-year break. I studied the distorted beauty in the deteriorating old film with its slightly off blue and purpled colors. And the flowers that wilt, warp, and color shift as they dry and how they complement each other in microform (no bigger than 3 inches squared) to create the floral rearrangements that are “From Here: Not From Here.”

Confined

My husband and I were held captive “visiting” a rich German friend, on his dime, at his beautiful compound on the Côte d’Azur, France. My dreams of visiting French perfumeries’ flower fields in Grasse were replaced by speedy car rides through side streets of Cannes. The travel photos I envisioned would become a story about viewing places of interest through the backseat window of a sport SUV. I wondered if this is the way a large portion of tourists actually see these highlights, peering out a window?  My friend wouldn’t stop the car for a photograph, sometimes the window wouldn’t be allowed down, as he was afraid I’d let the cold air-conditioning air out. I remember many family vacations that were rushed to get to the next destination without being able to enjoy the sight itself. How often do relaxing road trips become mentally tense or worse, end the relationship? 

1998 was the year J.K. Rowling introduced the world to Harry Potter and the infamous scene of passing through a brick wall on train platform 9 ¾ into a parallel world of wizardry. Newton, Einstein and Erwin Schroedinger, all wrote about the theory of a parallel universe years ago. Stephen Hawking has written in detail of how there are multitudes of our universe, our space and time existing simultaneously.

It has been said that we pass through these planes through portals; wormholes that allow matter to flow freely through to another existence in the same but different world. Bending Time is about showing these portals within our current environment. These portals of Quantum physics are not physical destinations for us to visit, but are shown to contemplate how do our decisions affect us, by crossing space and time to fulfill a desired thought if it was carried out differently. 

Do your clothes have meaning? Are you trying to say something by the way you dressed today? What happens when someone reads your statements wrong? Sometimes we get dressed to feel empowered; by looking smart or tough, perhaps sexual. Other times, it is to please some else, maybe fool gender expectations, to stand out, or to blend in. For many, it is a daily survival technique to navigate through life. Using the Covid-19 “pandemic mask” as a starting point (only using items from home during the Quarantine.) I have taken self-portraits using clothing to explore these interpretations and how do we want to be viewed VS how we are seen.

The homes in my neighborhood date back one hundred years or more. As with any home, things need replacing on a regular basis. The plaster ceiling in our spare bedroom started to come loose and needed to be replaced. Upon removing the ceiling I found amongst the debris a rat skeleton, an abandoned beehive, and lots of nails. I drew upon these found objects and other things found on my property for a still life study called Urban Archaeology. 

Urban Archaeology is about little treasures forgotten and found over the years in ones own home. Sometimes someone finds a Picasso hidden away in the attic and sometimes it’s rat bones. This set of bones I found intriguing not only because the leg and tail were fully intact, but moreover because I shared my home with it and also a large hive of bees at some point and didn’t know. 

“An Ordinary World” examines and highlights architecture from cities around the world. I have digitally manipulated the images to focus on the details of the landscape or buildings that often are ignored after one viewing. By pulling colors from within the image, I reflect the energy and spirit these structures bring to the cities in which they live.

A study of Renewable energy from the Coachella Valley, California

Buildings and Physical Structures