Wonderful opening at Strathmore

Snap to it
Photography is more than just point-and-shoot
— especially in their hands
Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2006
by Karen Schafer Staff Writer



Photo by the artist courtesy of Strathmore Lillian Fitzgerald uses multiple beautiful but mundane photographs to create an interesting collage.

The world is ‘‘awash in images,” contends landscape photographer Barbara Southworth. And she does have a point. Photographs are everywhere, from rarified art galleries to homespun craft fairs to Target-type mega-markets. It doesn’t stop there, either; downloading and sending photos via computer or cell phone has become a national pastime. Regardless of whether the picture is snapped using a high end Nikon, a disposable point and shoot or the newest RAZR cellular phone, technology has made photography a made-for-the-masses medium. Even Montgomery County is under the shutterbug spell, with exhibits currently hanging in The Mansion at Strathmore in North Bethesda, the Metropolitan Center for the Visual Arts (VisArts), formerly Rockville Arts Place, in Gaithersburg, and the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery in Rockville.
But come on, with all these hordes of people snapping up a storm, what makes luscious landscapes and posed people art while others are merely delete-worthy?
‘‘I don’t know if I can answer that,” Southworth admits with a slight chuckle. Known for her landscapes documenting pristine places protected by lands trusts, now on view at Strathmore, the artist says she ‘‘puts it out there and takes what happens.”

Besides, as a landscape painter, Southworth is accustomed to living with the ‘‘Sunday painter connotation.” She knows her images are a contrast to ‘‘the age of irony” that has taken over the art world. ‘‘I play against the pretty picture postcard syndrome,” she admits and hopes her work can be ‘‘taken to a level beyond decoration.”

Fellow photographer Mark Isaac, whose abstract landscapes also are part of the Strathmore exhibit, isn’t at all convinced that anybody can snap a remarkable landscape photograph. He seems somewhat annoyed by the question. ‘‘Barbara’s [Southworth] photos are of exceptional quality. The viewer has to look carefully and not rush by without thinking or examining. And looking will reveal what is exceptional,” he says. But Isaac also knows that when it comes to this hi-tech medium, ‘‘more is being tried in photography than ever before.” But like Southworth and the other artists on exhibition, it’s their unique message or medium that differentiates them from the masses. Obsession also helps. For the past eight years, Isaac has been fascinated with shooting isolated and often forgotten locations. He started with blurred moving images taken from a train traveling along the Northeast corridor between D.C. and New York. Now he is photographing ‘‘reflections of light on a variety of surfaces — in such overlooked places as surfaces of cars and buildings.”
Isaac produces work that can’t always be immediately identified as photography, let alone landscape; from a distance, they appear to be paintings.
No matter the style, it’s the ‘‘deep connection to the image” that counts, Southworth explains. ‘‘I find an audience of people who like my work, and I know its going to a good home.”
For the five landscape photographers on exhibit at VisArts, the dark room process sets them a whole century apart from their contemporaries. They create contact prints using AZO paper, a rare Kodak product first made in the 1890s. (The company recently halted production, making it even more precious.) The arduous task begins with the photographer shooting with a large-format camera that uses oversized negatives. The negative is placed on the AZO paper, creating a contact print. Since it is unnecessary to blow up the negative, the technique offers ‘‘absolutely startling” detail, according to VisArts curator Harriet Lesser.
Reminiscent of the work of photo masters Edward Westin and Albert Stieglitz, the exhibit’s 50 black and white prints of landscapes and architectural structures make up what Lesser calls an ‘‘honor your ancestors” sort of show. When technology runs amok, sometimes ‘‘people turn to handmade,” she points out.
The exhibit’s curator Paul Paletti concurs. He notes that ‘‘new photographic and digital processes make it relatively easy to produce large prints, either in color or black and white. But producing something large only makes it striking, not interesting.”
The Louisville, Ky.-based curator believes the so-called new and improved processes can give work a ‘‘certain homogeneity that, while initially attractive, lacks the subtle grace of the handmade wet darkroom contact print.”
But Lesser is savvy enough to realize that with all the images available, ‘‘photographers have a tough road. ‘‘You can buy a pretty good photo print in Crate and Barrel for $389,” and spend much less at scores of other shops, she acknowledges. While they are often ‘‘tasteful,” they are not the least bit ‘‘risky.” For almost the same amount of money, she points out, an individual can purchase an original AZO print handmade by Silver Spring artist Jim Shanesy or perhaps the most well-known of the show’s five artists, Alaska-based artist George Provost.
Not all artists are process driven or searching for that perfect shot; it’s setting up image that matters to the three photographers exhibiting at Glenview Mansion. Like so many photographers before them, these artists create scenes using themselves or others as performers. Calling the range of styles ‘‘documentary to dreamlike,” exhibitor John Borstel of Silver Spring believes each photographer offers a ‘‘contemporary look at the self-portrait.” Borstel is Mr. Dramatic, addressing autobiographical moments in his childhood by photographing himself wearing costumes, makeup and organic materials. Theatrical and sometimes disturbing, he calls his work ‘‘still life performances.”
Like Borstel, Gary Wolfe photographs himself staying in motel rooms, the ‘‘loneliest place in the world,” creating ‘‘self-portraiture not performance art,” he says.
Sara Pomerance is often in her photographs, but she also adds a cast of characters placed in mundane environments. Her goal is to ‘‘catch the fleeting moment when the people ... seem to veer off the track of learned behavior, pattern response and formulated thoughts.”
Delving into their own backgrounds, adding and editing each shot, and hoping to elicit some sort response in themselves and their audience, the artists aren’t into pretty portraits. And yes, both Wolfe and Borstel know their work can be a hard sell for anyone looking for a picture to place over the divan. But they are unperturbed by this fact.
‘‘Pictures are not just images,” Borstel insists, ‘‘They are artifacts.”
Strathmore — Photography by Barbara Southworth & Clifford Wheeler and ‘‘The Poetry of Random Moments,” photos by Peggy Fleming, Mark Isaac and Lillian Fitzgerald, to Feb. 18; Gallery house: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Wednesday 10 a.m.-9 p.m. and Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; children’s talk & tour, 10:15 a.m. Jan. 14, free, reservations required; art talk for adults, 1 p.m. Jan. 14, free, Mansion, 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda, 301-581-5109.
Glenview Mansion Art Gallery — ‘The Lens as Mirror,’ photographs by John Borstel, Sara Pomerance & Gary A. Wolfe, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 9 a.m -4:30 p.m., Tuesday, Thursday, 9 a.m.-9 p.m. in Rockville Civic Center Park, 603 Edmonston Drive, 240-314-8682, 240-314-5004.
Metropolitan Center for the Visual Arts (VisArts, formerly Rockville Arts Place) — ‘AZO>Contact>Print,’ photographers Joe Freeman, James W. Shanesy, George Provost, Scott Killian, Steve Sherman, to Feb. 4, from Monday to Friday: 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; artist talk ‘How Do You Do That?’ & dessert 3-5 p.m. Jan. 22, 9300 Gaither Road, Gaithersburg, 301-869-8623.