A frozen moment as I left the Sundance Film Festival.
the outskirts of Park City, Utah
City of Ghosts & Dreams
I am excited to share a new body of work on my website today. The series is a bit of a departure for me, in that it is all color photography. The pairing of the images are the result of a kind of visual improvisation, both in my approach to how I shot, as well as how I created the resulting diptychs. Everything was shot with one camera and one lens, during an extended stay in New York during the Spring of 2017. The shift of political and social winds could be felt as I roamed the streets, though I tried (but failed) to not make any overt political statements with the images. I guess the personal is political, as they say. This series will be the subject of a new book I will be releasing in the very near future. I hope you enjoy.
Along the Rio Grande
A River Runs Through It
Those of us who live in New Mexico know the importance of the Rio Grande. One of its values is the wonderful, (mostly) undeveloped nature of the bosque that adorns its banks. The bosque offers a respite from the urban life of Albuquerque, and yet exists within minutes of the city itself. It's a thicket of salt cedar, fallen branches, various flowers and grasses, jetty jacks and the abundant cottonwood trees, which at this time of year, explode into yellow and gold. Today was a perfect, overcast day, so the wife and I headed out for a quick wander. Except for temporarily straying into an extremely muddy patch (as is evident in the photo of my destroyed Chuck Taylors) the day rewarded us with many sights and sounds. Of course, I decided to capture the glorious colors of autumn in black and white.
"Self and Shadow" near Cabezon Peak, New Mexico
Quo vadimus
I had the pleasure of taking a day-long road trip with my good friend Bob Ayre this past weekend. Bob knows New Mexico like the back of his hand, so it was a treat to let him guide me into uncharted territory in the northwest part of the state. My Fiat would never have survived some of the unpaved back roads we traversed, and I probably would have chickened out heading down some of the routes by myself. With Bob at the helm, I saw some difficult to reach locations for the first time. Here's a sample of our journey. Thank you, Bob.
Beyond Words, Beyond Expectations
Sometimes it takes a while to realize that you have made a good choice in your life's direction. Over two years ago, I decided to take my personal photography more seriously. One thing that I always dreamed of doing, but never had the guts to attempt, was an artist residency. So, in early 2015, I mustered the courage to apply for an opportunity to spend a month in the city of Porto, Portugal. My focus on Portugal was partly due to my connection with fellow photographer, Fabio Miguel Roque. He is based in Sintra, just outside of the capital of Lisbon. We are both members of the Latent Image Collective, and though we had never met in person, I was excited to finally connect and spend some time shooting together. Long story short, I was invited for a residency at De Liceiras 18, and spent a month focussing on my personal photographic work. I also spent two days shooting with Fábio, and our creative bonds deepened as a result.
Fast forward to October 2016. Fábio and I were looking for a project to collaborate on long-distance. We devised a plan to shoot simultaneously for 24 hours, each of us taking a solo, photographic road trip, each wandering without a set plan into the desert near our homes. We would share the results of the trip in a joint publication. We released the book "Beyond / Além" last year, and hoped that we could one day exhibit the work. That hope will be realized this weekend in Évora, Portugal.
I am so thrilled to be able to share the walls of a gallery with my friend and collaborator, and it stands as a tangible manifestation of the idea we had months ago. What is even more meaningful to me is that first step I took outside of my comfort zone, the decision to travel to Portugal in the first place, has reaped so many benefits for me personally and creatively.
The show opens this Saturday at the Palácio de D. Manuel in Évora. I received the text from the program, that was written by Eduardo Luciano, Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Évora. I'd like to share it here, as it is an insightful analysis of the work that Fábio and I created. I am honored and humbled by these words.
“Only art could unite two realities that are two thousand kilometers away, and yet they feel so close. From these images we can perceive that the ocean that separates is, above all, the ocean that also unites us, just as the bridge that we share may be the element we need to overcome and to reach the other. The aridity, the loneliness, the paths that the work of these two photographers explore, seem to go nowhere. Yet, there have the common features: the existence of humans, both in the American desert and in the Alentejo. We look at the two realities from a point so far and yet so close, via the sensitivity of these two artists.
This exhibition is a challenge of reading reality, above prejudices and against prejudices. In a world where the unknown is the engine of our fear and in which there is a growing temptation to mortgage freedom on behalf of a false security, Fábio Miguel Roque and Nick Tauro Jr. show us, in an impressive way, the deep similarities that bind us.
The Municipality of Évora could not fail to accept and promote this universalist approach to space, as it explores the aesthetic convergence of two naturally divergent environments. It is our duty, as a public service, to promote unrest, stave off the doldrums, question certainties, and discuss the unknown. Without fear and knowing that the “invisible city”, that Italo Calvino brilliantly put into the words of Marco Polo, it will be whenever our imagination allows.
Welcome to the journey, welcome to the paths that lead us to the “other” landscape. So that the difficulty of finding it is not as difficult as José Samarago enunciated in his speech before accepting the Nobel Prize, “one arrives more easily at Mars than at our own fellow human.” Perhaps art is the map that enables the trip to the universe of the other, and is more pleasant and shorter than the hypothetical arrival to Mars.”
Click on the images above to see the program from the exhibit.
From the series "The American Monument" © Lee Friedlander
Worth A Thousand Words: Lee Friedlander
Well, I ended up taking a week off since I was on vacation, after all. But I’m jumping back into my routine, and thought I’d find an image that had some added significance to discuss. This week, I’m looking at a photograph by one of the most influential American photographers of the past 50 years, Lee Friedlander. His work has been instrumental in the development of my own style, and I continue to be inspired by his ongoing visual explorations.
The photograph I’m looking at today is from Friedlander’s series “The American Monument.” It is with intention that I am looking at this body of work now, against the backdrop of the vocal and sometimes violent re-examination of the presence and the meaning of statues and monuments that stand in cities across the United States.
This particular monument that Friedlander photographed, stands in what might be considered the “center of the world,” New York City. So, what is it that I see? It is a black and white photograph, shot on film, which is obvious when it is revealed that the image dates from the 1970s. Though the angle seems, slightly wide, the depth of field is sharp throughout, and the background stacks layer upon layer around the main subject, a statue of one “Father Duffy.”
Some cursory searching online found this information:
“Father Francis Duffy of Most Holy Trinity Church on 42nd Street near Broadway served with the Fighting 69th, a mostly-Irish regiment in World War I, was severely wounded, and received the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery on the battlefield. His monument in Duffy Square, the triangle formed by Broadway, 7th Avenue and 47th Street and dedicated in 1937, features Father Duffy in his World War I uniform standing in front of the Celtic cross.”
The location of the statue is part of Times Square, and it is interesting to see how much has grown around it, not only when Friedlander took his photograph, but as it looks today. Part of what I find fascinating about “The American Monument” series is that many of the featured monuments that have receded into their surroundings. Often, they look as though they have been neglected or forgotten. They become lost in their environments, or perhaps those environments have changed and transformed from when the statues were first erected. The Father Duffy image is a perfect illustration of this. If we examine how Friedlander chose to show us this scene, we can see that the statue is only one small component of the entire scene. The composition is almost like a jigsaw puzzle, with the image of Father Duffy lost in a sea of advertisements, block letters, scaffolding, and buildings. The alignment at the top of the frame is slightly off kilter, due to the perspective of the photographer looking up from ground level, while the wrought iron spikes of a fence along the bottom of the frame brings a jagged severity composition.
I find it interesting to ponder the fact that the monument we see in this photograph is a tribute to both a priest and a soldier. It brings a deeper meaning to the image for me. The symbolism of a spiritual leader is at odds with the crass consumerism on display around him. Secondly, the man who is lionized here was a soldier in World War 1, and his efforts to fight for his country were perhaps ironically resulting in giving us our freedom to drink an endless supply Coca Cola while waiting in line for some half-priced Broadway show tickets. The clash of reverence and irreverence is palpable. What is also quite interesting is once a Google image search is done on this monument, you can plainly see that the environment that Friedlander captured in the 1970s has changed dramatically to what one finds there today. Times Square was always considered the crossroads of the world, so any change really should not be surprising. As the area transformed under Rudy Giuliani in the 1990s, the real estate value increased at an unbelievable pace. Considering all of this, I am actually a bit surprised the statue wasn’t relocated somewhere else.
A recent photo of Father Duffy Square.
I wonder what Friedlander might add to the current national dialogue (arguments) about the role of statues and monuments in our country. As stated earlier, the overall feeling of the body of work is one of neglect or ignorance. However, we as a society are in the process of re-assessing who is considered a hero and who is a scoundrel, a murderer, or a traitor. Every monument is a commemoration of both a victory and a defeat. Both the conqueror and the conquered. If history is written by the victors, these statues, of course, focus on the exploits that have no doubt caused someone else great pain and suffering. From a nationalistic standpoint, it may be easier to hail a hero from a war overseas, and let the benefit of time polish the luster of the monument. However, when those commemorated have inflicted bloodshed on our own soil, against our own citizens, should these statues be allowed to stand any longer?
Perhaps Friedlander would choose not to overtly politicize his intent. To further your pondering, I will close with a wonderful quote I found by John Szarkowski on this work:
“… I think we are moved more deeply by Friedlander's intuitions concerning the nature of America's relationship to its past, concerning the vernacular materials out of which with attention we might fashion a culture, concerning the evidence of these countless attempts to preserve and nourish the idea of community. I am still astonished and heartened by the deep affection in those pictures, by the photographer's tolerant equanimity in the face of the facts, by the generosity of spirit, the freedom from pomposity and rhetoric. One might call this work an act of high artistic patriotism, an achievement that might help us reclaim that work from ideologues and expediters. His work, in sum, constitutes a conversation among the symbols that we live among and that to some degree we live by.”
Ongoing Conversation
I am a proud member of the Latent Image Collective. We are very excited to be staging a group exhibition in Downtown Albuquerque at the Downtown Contemporary Gallery. As part of PhotoSummer, we will be presenting a group show, titled "Ongoing Conversation." The show will feature forty-four images, which comprise a thread of images, in the spirit of the parlor game "Exquisite Corpse" or a child's game of "Telephone."
We have recently printed up the photographs, and framing commenced this weekend. We will hang the show and be ready for the opening reception on Friday, July 28th. If you are near Albuquerque, New Mexico, I hope to see you there.
Words to Ponder
My photos, above. Not my words, below.
“Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes forever the precise and transitory instant. We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory. The writer has time to reflect. He can accept and reject, accept again; and before committing his thoughts to paper he is able to tie the several relevant elements together. There is also a period when his brain “forgets,” and his subconscious works on classifying his thoughts. But for photographers, what has gone, has gone forever. From that fact stem the anxieties and strength of our profession.”
My own photo interpretation, taken from the book "Robert Frank Moving On" published by Scalo & the National Gallery of Art.
Robert Frank: Look Out For Hope
We live in desperate times. But haven't we always? Are we more aware of the world's problems now because we have this incessant, 24 hour a day internet torrent of bad news washing over us? Or are things really worse now than ever before? Global warming, terrorism, economic disparity, people being dragged out of their cars and beaten by the police, or shot at the slightest provocation for no reason at all, millions of war refugees, political leaders who don't represent the good of all their constituents, people on almost every street corner holding signs begging for some change (monetary or otherwise.) Some days it's just harder to keep going. And to look in the mirror and ask "what am I doing?" to make the world a better place. To help others. To have empathy. To give a shit. To keep my feet firmly on the side of the positive. To stay where I am and keep fighting. To put my art in the world. To not let negativity win. To not let the fuckers get me down. To not let the darkness of the evil doers win. My mind goes to the artists, the writers, the film makers, the poets, the singers, the comedians...those who are the light in the darkness. Like Robert Frank, who has been a creative inspiration for me for well over 30 years, and whose photograph I sat and pondered this morning. "Look Out For Hope." When I first saw that image in college, I didn't know exactly what it meant. Or what Frank's work really meant. I was still in school and thought that Ansel Adams was the pinnacle of photographic expression (oh, youth...) Little did I know that Frank's daughter had died in a plane crash. Or that years later, his son would suffer mental breakdowns and eventually die. Or that we all fucking suffer in our own way. As he said in another photograph "The wind will blow the fire of pain across everyone in time." Death, divorce, physical pain, loneliness, alienation, bankruptcy, homelessness, substance abuse and addiction, random violence. And various other losses both great and small. But what do we do? Give up? Or find a way to fight, every fucking day. To awaken, still breathing and still looking out for hope.
New publication available now sold exclusively via MagCloud.
Flaunt The Imperfections
I am pleased to announce the launch of a new 'zine series called "Flaunt The Imperfections." The premier issue features my work, shot over an extended period of time in early 2017, mostly in the area of Marfa, Texas and the environs of New Mexico. All photographs were shot on film, and the resulting images highlight the grain, textures, and "flaws" inherent in the medium. It is a 32 page, 8 inch square, perfect bound publication.
It is my intention for this 'zine to be published several times a year. I plan to retain the design and layout duties, but will use this as a platform for collaborations with other photographers shooting on film. The price of the new 'zine is $12.50 (plus shipping) and is ONLY available for purchase through MagCloud. Click the link below to make your purchase today.
Flaunt The Imperfections: Issue 1
The premier issue of a new 'zine series, featuring the work of Nick Tauro Jr. This publication celebrates the grain, textures and intrinsic imperfections found in film-based photography.
