One Path Leads to Another...

My recent work has introduced me to a character that I'm quite fond of, a character similar to Robert ParkeHarrison's "every man," she asks big questions of herself, the world around her and the limitations of photography. Through this character and her seemingly simple tasks I will continue my search for my own path and my own answers to larger questions. Stay tuned.

Outside the Frame

Photographs By Kevin Irby

I have always been interested and concerned with the camera's ability to include or exclude. Alfred Stieglitz once spoke about a single photograph's inability to provide an accurate portrait of a person, insisting that this must be done over time and with multiple photographs.

It is easy to forget when viewing a single photograph that there was something happening, in real time, to the left and right of the frame, something that may dispel any myth created by that image.

In some instances this restrictive, controlled or manipulated nature can be the success, charm or strength of a photograph, leaving the viewer room to make up the rest of the story.

How the Truth Gets Framed by the Camera

American Photography: Digital Truth

No Words- Just Pictures

"Find Your Own Path"

As I contimplate new project ideas I'm reminded that nothing is new and yet somewhere in this mess of already done stuff I'm supposed to create something new, or at the very least I must "find my own path." At one moment it seems pointless to make something else to throw on "the pile." Something else that will take resources to make, breifly be passed around and then find its way to a resting spot to sit and collect dust. Furthermore the imagery I'm atracted to and find myself looking at could be seen as trendy, overdone narratives (with men in collared shirts with ties and women in white dresses). The list at the right are some of those artists that I've found myself admiring as of late and finding inspiration from, inspiration to move forward despite my knowing that it has all been done before...

Keeping all of the pictures...

Gerald Slota
Untitled (Women in Purse), 2005
Unique gelatin silver print 10 x 8"

Why does Grandma insist on keeping photographs that are so badly printed you cannot even discern who or what they are of? And what would she say if she saw them now?

I once stood next to a man at the Eastman House who contemplated a group of images by this photographer- Gerald Slota. The man looked for a moment, shook his head and said "looks like somebody ruined some perfectly good photographs."

With rising interest in the "found", particularly that of the happened upon photograph, archives are at the forefront of contemporary art trends. Archives that perhaps would otherwise not have been examined and families that would have been forgotten, right along with the garage sale signs advertising their estate's sale that stayed stapled to the corner telephone post until weather finally took note of the long expired date and swept them away, are now in the halls of famous institutions.

Would the man contemplating the photographs of Gerald Slota have been as equally as disgusted if he knew that the photographs were found objects to begin with? Objects that someone's Grandmother cared about.