Thomas Macker is inspired by his sympathies—sympathies for people and places. Sometimes he stages scenes (recreations of dreams, fairytales, and myths, or recreations of witnessed interactions between people); sometimes he shoots from
life, seeking to ennoble the underappreciated and to honor the actual. His pieces are in constant dialogue with each other through story, emotion, and theme.

Thomas is also interested in liminal landscapes, the threshold between the wild and civilized—i.e., the intersection of a supermarket parking lot and the woods; a housing development and the desert; a bulldozer at night, streetlight-lit, near a baseball field and meadow. He is also interested in Southern California’s aura of unreality.