Dr. Maurice Berger at the Legacies of LIGHT Symposium at the Center for Creative Photography 1-19-20

Dr. Maurice Berger 1956 - 2020

March 25, 2020

As I have written before in posts, when I was at the Legacies of LIGHT symposium at the Center for Creative Photography back in January I realized I was participating in something very special. Not only was the event documenting an important period in the history of the medium of Photography but I felt the symposium itself would one day be looked back upon as an historic event. One thing I noted was that the symposium would most likely be the last time all these incredibly influential people, those who helped shape where our medium is today, would be in the same room together. I had no idea how soon this would happen but on Monday March 23rd the Photography / Art / History worlds lost an important professor and curator who was at the symposium.

Maurice Berger was a writer, cultural historian, and curator whose work focused on the intersection of race and visual culture. In 2018 he won the “Infinity Award” in Critical Writing and Research for his NY Times Lens Section columns “Race Stories”. He was also the Research Professor and Chief Curator at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His spouse of 27 years was Marvin Heiferman who was a former LIGHT gallery employee and presenter at the symposium. Maurice passed away in New York from complications related to the COVID-19 virus.

I did not know Maurice personally but I photographed him several different times at the symposium, including the moment he was photographing Marvin with their long time friend a fellow LIGHT gallery alum Laurence Miller, some of my best images from the symposium.

Earlier this month I sent prints to many of the people I photographed at the symposium . Larry Miller got his prints before Maurice and Marvin, Larry showed his prints to Marvin who immediately reached out to me asking for a copies, not knowing I had already made him prints. I am in shock right now with the realization that two weeks ago I was trading emails with Marvin about these images and two days ago Maurice died from the COVID-19 virus. After hearing the news last night I looked on Maurice’s Instagram page and saw a week ago he had posted an image of Marvin photographing in Hyde Park, NY and made a comment in another post about being in a crowded upstate New York market listening to people discuss the virus. Maurice’s decline and passing must have been incredibly fast which is scary. I was in Boston with my son, Brent, when concerns about COVID-19 started to really take hold in this country. We had planned a long road trip back when Brent’s hockey season ended but changed plans for a fast direct route when we realized how serious the situation was becoming. We have been back in California for almost a week now after witnessing the country shut down more and more as we traveled West. Hopefully we will continue to stay healthy as this pandemic passes through our society. Maurice’s passing brings mortality in to focus for me one more time this year (just a brutal year of loss), hopefully others in society will recognize the seriousness of the situation and be even more vigilant in their habits. My thoughts and prayers go out to Marvin, Maurice, and all their family and friends.

Obituaries for Maurice:

Baltimore Sun

The Jewish Museum

ArtNet.com

Anne Breckenridge Barrett, Peter MacGill, Susan Harder, Laurence Miller, Jack Sal, and Rick Wester.

The Legacies of LIGHT symposium - The Center for Creative Photography

March 4, 2020

The CCP describes the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition as this: “The Center for Creative Photography’s exploration of LIGHT Gallery is an institutional history that investigates the impact of this commercial space through its role in the larger community.”

When I attended the opening in December, I saw the description was accurate. It’s a unique exhibition in how it recreated certain physical elements of the LIGHT Gallery, displayed works of LIGHT’s artists, had a component for highlighting emerging artist of today (an important function of LIGHT back when it was open), and was able to show how important this gallery was to the history of the medium. One of the most impressive elements for highlighting the impact LIGHT had on photography today was Curatorial Assistant Adam Monohon’s brilliant concept of creating a line map showing the connections of so many important photographers, curators, and photography institutions back to LIGHT gallery. The exhibition also has so many cool interactive elements which I documented in a separate post. I had no idea that so many of the people who effected my growth as a photographer were linked back to LIGHT in some way. I think the entire exhibition really does well to capture the spirit of LIGHT and that time period.

Another important aspect of the exhibition is to highlight the connection between CCP and LIGHT. Harold Jones was the first Director of LIGHT and his vision set the course for the galley. Harold left LIGHT to help with building the Center for Creative Photography and the Studio Photography Program at the University of Arizona.

So this blog post is about the “Legacies of Light” symposium which was held in January at the CCP in conjunction with the exhibition. I signed up for the symposium as soon as I learned of it after having my work included in the exhibition. I thought it would be a good experience to learn more about LIGHT’s history and to have an opportunity to interact with so many people involved in photography. I was blown away with the experience of this symposium, it far and away exceeded my expectations.

Here is a link to the description of the speakers and the subject matter o the “Legacies of Light” symposium on CCP’s website. It is the best way to accurately describe the event in detail.

Another great resource is this link of CCP’s videos of the symposium: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRnlWp7M-YuVQY_okRmQmGA .

Now for my impressions. While attending the Legacies of Light I quickly realized one of the symposium’s primarily goals was to document the history of photography’s evolution to becoming a recognized as fine art. The people connected to LIGHT, many of whom attended the symposium, played so many important roles in photography’s rise in status within the art world. The symposium also talked about the current state of the photography community and our future. Everything was so well done by Anne Breckenridge Barrett, Rebecca Senf, and the entire CCP staff. There is so much to cover I will just jump in and start talking about the weekend and hopefully all my notes and recollections are accurate.

Anne Breckenridge Barrett

Fern Schad, Britt Salvesen, and Charles Traub

Things started Friday with small tours of the CCP facilities (I covered that experience in this linked: blog post) and a Keynote speech by Britt Salvesen who is the Curator and Head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at LACMA. She gave an overview of LIGHT’s impact on the development of fine art photography followed by a panel discussion with Fern Schad and Charles Traub about LIGHT. Fern owned LIGHT with her husband Tennyson. She had an early interest in photography and had worked for Bill Jay in England before coming to the US where she spent time as a picture editor for LIFE magazine. Tennyson was an attorney who had the vision for the gallery and supported it financially. Traub spent time as a Director of LIGHT gallery and later was instrumental in establishing The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. He is also an established photographer an educator. I was fascinated by how much effort went in to establishing the gallery and maintaining it.

Becky Senf, Sally Stein, and Marvin Heiferman

Sally Stein, and Marvin Heiferman

Fern Schad - Legacies of LIGHT at the CCP

Saturday began with two former LIGHT employees Marvin Heiferman and Sally Stein reminiscing about the gallery and the atmosphere of New York in the 1970’s art world. Marvin spoke about how he learned to “see” pictures at LIGHT. He said Harold Jones taught him to “Just look at stuff” and to learn by the experience of looking. He went on to explain how he came to understand what pictures communicate to viewers. This really resonated with me because I feel too many people today don’t take the appropriate amount of time to actually look and experience images, we live in an Instagram world of the two second page view then “Like and Swipe”. Marvin gave examples of how photography wasn’t always accepted as art then. He remembered how a New York Times art critic had told Harold that photographs were not art. He also remembered an occasion when a woman accidentally got off the elevator on their floor while looking for another gallery He said she stepped off the elevator looked down the gallery wall at all the prints and stated “Oh photographs…” then stepped immediately back on the elevator. Marvin said Weston Neff and representatives from the Fogg Museum at Harvard would come in to the gallery but MoMA’s John Szarkowski would not, speculating because he didn’t want to acknowledge there was another “game in town”. Sally spoke to how the gallery struggled financially to survive.

Fern Schad, Andy Grundberg, and Marvin Heiferman

Becky Senf, Andy Grundberg, and Marvin Heiferman

Andy Grundberg, Marvin Heiferman, Michal Raz-Risso, and Sally Stein

Michal Raz-Russo, who is the Associate Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago spoke next of her Master’s thesis research about LIGHT gallery. She talked about how LIGHT was innovated in how they presented work, specifically hanging rows of images in grid form which hadn’t really been done before. She described Light’s 1972 exhibition of Stephen Shore’s “American Surfaces” which was shown three rows high and taped to the wall (No installation prints from this exhibition survived) and the 1975 exhibition of Garry Winogrand where LIGHT displayed over 100 of his prints behind glass and “L” hooks on one wall. Michal said Harold Jones used the grid style to try and show how Winogrand approached photographing: “Rapidly and Quickly”. It was fascinating to learn this because I can see the impact on some of the exhibitions I have seen. Most notably the Pier 24 Gallery exhibition where Winogrand’s complete “Women are Beautiful” series was displaced in a grid in one room while Stephen Shore’s prints were in another room. I can also recall MoMA, MFA, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The Art Institute and other institutions using grids in fantastic exhibitions, so I found it interesting to know where the possible origins of these designs came from.

Andy Grundberg spoke next on the evolution of photography as an accepted art form and LIGHT’s important involvement in that process. For those of you reading this who aren’t familiar with Andy he is possibly photography’s most well known art critic and the author of numerous great books on photography. He has written for the New York Times and is also a professor at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University. Andy was in New York City during this period and summed it up perfectly when he commented “I was a witness of photography at its most incredible time, the 70’s and 80’s”. I loved hearing him describe the New York scene like the print bins at The Witkin Gallery and studying under Lizette Model at the New School. I am also interested in upcoming new book, How Photography Became Contemporary Art because I understand there was considerable focus on LIGHT gallery’s impact.

Becky Senf lead a Q&A panel session next which focused on the history of photography and LIGHT’s impact. In summary they acknowledged how prior to the Witken Gallery and MoMA showing photographs that photography magazines and publications were the primary source for people to see good photography (way different than today’s Instagram era). They spoke how Winogrand and other photographers all got their start with photography-based magazines. Fern Schad, LIGHT’s co-owner, brought up how LIFE magazine closed in 1972 with the advent of television news, and how images on TV are fleeting. The panel spoke of Susan Sontag’s writing on photography and John Szarkowski’s catalogues at MoMA and how photography began to be looked at for its artistic value and not just a means of describing news. Michal Raz-Russo added to that saying that some Photojournalism is now starting to be accepted as artwork.

The panel recognized the important influence entities like The Society of Photographic Education, The George Eastman House, The ICP, National Geographic, The Visual Studies Workshop and others had on the medium. They also identified that the 1970’s were really when much of the movement occurred; in example the first formal photography department was at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1974. Becky Senf then pointed out something very important when she said “It’s remarkable how much (photography) history from the decade of the 1970’s isn’t documented.” Becky’s comment came in to focus for me more and more as the weekend went on. I realized the symposium was really focused on preserving photography’s history while it was still possible to get it firsthand from people who were part of it. Looking around the room there were so many icons from the industry and I knew because of reality of their ages that this symposium was most likely the last time you would have so builders of the medium together in one room. I also realized that with all my previous history of photography courses the focus was primarily on the photographers. Yes, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall were recognized, and we used their textbook, and we were taught about Stieglitz’s influence but most my knowledge was on image makers. It makes since because I studied at Arizona State University in the mid 1980’s when this New York scene was still strong and the Center for Creative Photography was just getting started. For me personally it was very good to grow my knowledge of the medium. By Sunday I realized the symposium was not only exploring and documenting the history of the medium, and considering its future, but I think the symposium was becoming an historic event in the history of the medium itself by what was being accomplished there.

Dominique Luster

Rick Wester, Liz Allen, Dominique Luster, and Alec Soth

Liz Allen, Dominique Luster, Alec Soth, and Sarah Stolfa

The afternoon session on Saturday began with a panel discussion “Engaging Community” moderated by Rick Wester. The first thing they focused on was how we define the photography community. ASU Professor, and current Society for Photographic Education President Liz Allen spoke about SPE’s formation in the 1960’s under Nathan Lyons. She talked about the changing landscape of education the challenges educators have now with colleges having fewer tenure tract professor positions. Dominique Luster who is the endowed Charles “Teenie” Harris Archivist at the Carnegie Mellon Museum of Art spoke about her role with the Harris archive. I was not familiar with Harris who was a Pittsburgh based commercial photographer who documented the African American community. It was highly interesting to hear the impact Harris had on documenting the history of his community with his camera and how their museum is keeping that legacy of community moving forward. Magnum Photographer Alec Soth spoke about once he had a photography career, he craved a community. Something I can related to after graduating from ASU and leaving behind the academic environment. For Soth he started blogging in the early days of social media and found a safe way to engage a photography community. Soth remarked how he now followed by over 100,000 people which he still is awe of considering how few comments he got on his earliest posts. He also mentioned the weekend of the symposium was the 10th Anniversary of Instagram and added the “Corporation of Instagram has taken over” how we interact with photographs. Rick Wester added insight from a gallerist’s point of view when he said “The Internet has replaced the experience with information, people are now getting information and want to get the experience to go with it.”.

Following up on the last two quotes, I want to again talk about a theme I heard throughout the weekend and mentioned above, that you learn about photographs by looking at them. Now this might seem like an obvious thing but it isn’t today. We now live in the age of the “two second page view”, where people scroll through Instagram, or any other social media platform, as fast as they can until an image catches their attention. Unfortunately these “lure images” are usually the ones which catch people’s attention (my term based on the concept of shiny fishing lures). Intense saturation, lots of post-production, or a trending subject. Many people are missing out because they aren’t spending time with images to experience them. One of the best exhibitions I saw recently was the Howard Greenberg Collection at the MFA last November. The prints in the exhibition were some of the best I have ever seen. But to get the full experience you had to spend time inspecting them, noticing details, and thinking about them. I walked through there exhibition twice to make sure I experienced it as well as I could, and if I could have gone back and seen it a second time, like I did the Warhol at the Whitney Museum recently I would have. Everyone I saw at the MFA was taking their time viewing the prints, it gave me hope.

Web 1-17 to 19-20 CCP - 3 Legacies of LIGHT 5.jpg

CCP’s Meg Jackson Fox and Emily Una Weirich moderated the next session which was “Valuing Story”. I think the best way to describe this session was an exploration of how institution are preserving history in non-traditional ways; basically history used to be written in text books and now we are capturing oral traditions and digital forms of communication to preserve historical information. Cassie May – an Oral History Archivist focused on the medium of Dance, Molly Garfinkel – Managing Director of City Lore, Dr Matthew Grilli – Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona, and Photographer Judy Natal were the panelists. Cassie, Molly, and Judy spoke about the projects and the process in their approach to documenting oral histories. It was interesting because they had diverse approaches and subject matter. They expressed the common theme that telling one’s story was important to create connections between people. Dr. Grilli then went on to examine what motivates people to tell stories, “The Why”. He said this motivation can change over time, often with younger people the goal may be to solve a problem while with older people the goal of story telling may be to teach, to inform, or to contemplate what may come to pass. They all agreed that documenting oral history is often a challenge because it is usually recorded in a long form manner which is hard to create sound bites from to be used in different ways of presentation. Several panel members also spoke of past problems they have with documenting oral histories and use rights. The panelists told of several stories where the original use release signed for an audio recording or filming for a specific project did not include wording in the release such “In all media for perpetuity”. The problem they have encountered is when they want to digitize the original oral histories and share them the original releases do not specifically authorize that and the interviewed persons are now deceased. Where it is obvious the person interviewed wanted to share their story, heirs have at times refused to grant new releases to use the materials in new formats.

Tennyson Schad

Fern Schad

Original LIGHT exhibition

Peter MacGill

Winnogrand show announcement

Stephen Shore announcement for LIGHT

First exhibition at LIGHT Gallery

Max Yavno

Bruce Davidson at ASU

Saturday concluded with a screening of Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s new documentary “LIGHT; When Photography was Undiscovered, 1971-1987”

Peter MacGill

Peter MacGill, Susan Harder, Laurence Miller, & Jack Sal

Anne Breckenridge Barrett, Peter MacGill, Susan Harder, Laurence Miller, & Jack Sal

Peter MacGill, Anne Breckenridge Barrett, and Harold Jones

Harold Jones and his family

Sunday started with a panel discussion about LIGHT from the perspective of people who worked there. Included in the panel were Peter MacGill, Laurence Miller, Rick Wester, Susan Harder, and Jack Sal. Its too hard to go in to all their comments, and this post is longer than I had intended already, but the thing I really came to understand listening to this group was an understanding of the atmosphere and energy of the LIGHT gallery. Susan Harder and Peter MacGill talked about handing them portfolios of photographer’s work and being sent out to museums across the country to cold call curators to promote photography as art and stir up business. They also told stories of going and staying with iconic photographers as they were preparing to exhibit their work at LIGHT and had so many funny experiences they shared. There is no doubt everyone involved with LIGHT helped pave the way for every photographer today. The panelists also accurately recognized how important the symposium was for recording the history they were part of because much of the knowledge of those days is on the cusp of going away with the aging of those involved. The final event was a celebration honoring Harold Jones who spoke along with several his close friends and family members.

Personally, I am still processing all the experiences of the weekend because it truly was an epic event. I believe this symposium, which was designed to document Photography’s history, will in fact be recognized in its own right as an historic event for Photography. The topic material from the symposium was fantastic but I more so I had so many valuable interactions with people, I am just thankful I was able to attend.

Becky Senf and Rick Wester

Richard Misrach

Anne Tucker and Meg Jackson Fox

Dr. Maurice Berger and Emily Una Weirich

Sally Stein and Jack Sal

Audry Sands

Alec Soth and Michal Raz-Rizzo

Mark Klett and Alex Turner

Mary Virginia Swanson

Rick Wester with Alec Soth

William Karl Valentine and Eli Giclas

William Karl Valentine and Liz Allen

William Karl Valentine with Meg Hagyard

William Karl Valentine , Becky Senf, & Frank Gohlke

After-party Sunday at Mary Virginia Swanson’s home - Mark Klett and Peter MacGill - perfect finish to the weekend.

Liz Allen working on her “hand” print for the book

Interactive component of the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition at the CCP

March 4, 2020

An important component of the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition is the interactive element. I focused on it some in my initial post about the opening. Since there was more activity during the symposium I documented it and felt it worked best to highlight it again in a separate post.

So again there were basically three interactive elements people could do. First was someone could have their photograph taken at a replica of Harold Jone’s LIGHT gallery desk by CCP’s David Ragland. Next you could sketch your hand to create a drawing to be bound in a book at the conclusion of the exhibition. LIGHT gallery did this at one point and the CCP was recreating that. CCP’s Camilla Stevenson was in charge of getting people to participate with this at the symposium and added a component by taking instant photographs of people to be included in the book with their hand sketches. I pushed the envelope with my sketch using my left had to sketch my right hand (most hand sketches were of left hands), then I had Camilla sign the instant print she took of me so she could lay claim to having a print in the exhibition then . The final station was where you could draw your own personal line map connecting yourself back to LIGHT gallery. I had completed my line map in December and after the symposium I could have added a lot more connections. I brought home a blank sheet so I will probably eventually update a copy for myself. All completed maps were pinned to the back wall of the interactive space to be shared. All three elements were fun and I especially loved the process of the line map.

William Karl Valentine and Fern Schad - The Qualities of LIGHT exhibition at the CCP - Tucson, AZ 1/19/20

Fern Schad - Legacies of LIGHT at the CCP

March 3, 2020

I must admit something, before the inclusion of my print in the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition I didn’t know who Fern Schad was. I graduated from ASU in 1986 just before LIGHT closed so they were still an active gallery and most my history of photography lessons had been about photographers not galleries or institutions.

At the Legacies of LIGHT symposium at the Center for Creative Photography, I quickly learned who Fern was and what an important role she played in helping to establish Photography as an accepted medium of art. I detailed the experiences of the symposium in a separate blog post, but I wanted to do a separate post on Fern to highlight some things.

First, I truly enjoyed listening to her describe LIGHT, the time period in New York City, and her experiences. She is a great presenter.

On Sunday after the last panel session concluded there was a break before the concluding celebration of Harold Jones and his work. Most people were interacting in the lobby but luckily I went back in to the gallery to look around again.

I found Fern walking through the main gallery alone looking at the photographs of the LIGHT artists. I watched her as she spent time with each image and tried to imagine all she was recounting, not only about the images but of that period of her life. I stayed back and took several photographs hesitating for her to between walls before interrupting her.

I introduced myself, and explained I had studied under Bill Jay at ASU because she had spoken about working for Bill Jay. I asked her about what it felt like being in this space and she spoke briefly about her memories. I then thanked her for LIGHT and explained how the ripple effect of LIGHT was still continuing because I had a print in the Emerging Artists flat file component of the exhibition. She was very gracious and asked to see my print. It was a very powerful moment for me to watch Fern holding my print, studying it, and then talking with me about it. Receiving validation from someone with her expertise and experience meant a lot to me considering how many important prints she has handled in her lifetime. I am thankful that I thought to photograph her holding the print because the moment is important to me. Having this print in the exhibition and later having it added to the permanent collection of the CCP is important for my career. I only spent a few minutes with Fern but the experience will be one of the more memorable ones in my photography career.

Fern Schad viewing William Karl Valentine’s print which is included in “The Qualities of LIGHT: exhibition flat file drawers” at the Center for Creative Photography - University of Arizona.

When I returned home from Tucson I wanted to learn more about Fern. I found she remarried Alfred H. Moses after Tennyson passed and that their Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund has sponsored numerous major photography exhibitions, some of which I have seen. More photographers should know about Fern and her contributions to the medium, I am so lucky I was able to get to meet her and learn of her impact.

Installing the exhibition - push pins, level, tape measure, and “eyeballing it” 1/24/20

William Karl Valentine - Exhibition at SAMYS - Pasadena, California

March 3, 2020

I drove the 500 miles home from Tucson on Sunday afternoon after everything with the Legacies of LIGHT symposium wrapped up. The next day I headed to Pasadena to check in on my mom and run some errands.

I stopped in at Samys Camera to get a couple things and to tell my friends there about the experience I had at the symposium. While talking with Jeff O’Brien he told me how the prints on the store’s small gallery wall had been up almost three months and he wanted to get some new photos up. He knows my work well and asked me to come up with something. I immediately agreed and started thinking about what I would do.

This reason I am going in to so much detail with this blog post is I want to give the reader insight into my thought process and approach to a simple exhibit so they can better understand approach to photography.

I realize the back wall of a camera store is not necessarily prestigious but in this case it had a lot of value. First of all the wall is very prominent and accessible. Almost every customer sees the wall when the exit the store and any customer going to the rental department walks right by it. This store has lots of knowledgeable photographers who are customers, plus it is two block away from a Pasadena City College which has an outstanding photography department. So the volume of potential viewers is very good.

I grew up in Pasadena and went to Pasadena City College, for me there was sentimental value to go home again. I had also exhibited work at Flags Photo (camera store) in Pasadena during the 1990’s, the store Jeff’s father had owned. I know that most any opportunity to showcase your work is a good thing because you never know who may see your images. I also know the process of editing and presenting an exhibition is a great exercise for a photographer.

When it came to what images to show I knew I had to include the image from my Pasadena PD series which was in the CCP’s Qualities of LIGHT exhibition, but I didn’t want to only showcase images from that series because they are from 34 years ago. I knew I wanted to give an overview of my work when I started editing for it, was thinking a linear display at first, and wanted to highlight images which had been in prominent exhibitions or were in permanent collections. I also had only glanced at the wall, had a guess at the size, but I hadn’t measured it.

Because I wanted to turn the project quickly I decided to make prints specifically for the show and didn’t want to deal with framing them. Michal Raz Russo’s presentation at the Legacies of LIGHT about some of the LIGHT gallery’s installations was fresh in my mind, so I started thinking about a simple way to the present work. The more I thought about it I realized I wanted to avoid a single straight row of prints and that I wanted to break up the pace of the images visually. I decided to make digital prints that were all consistent with each other even if the images were from film. I just can’t bring myself to casually display good silver gelatin prints since it takes so long to make them.

I started going through my image files thinking about which other images would fit. Lee Baroni applying the Carotid hold on the Duster jumped out as a good companion to the CCP image. The photo of Lee is in the permanent collection at the University of New Mexico. The Photograph of the motorcade from Officer Russ Miller’s funeral was another obvious choice. It was featured in the Billboard Creative in Los Angeles a couple years ago and is a signature image. “The Killing Fields” image is in the permanent collection of the Fogg Museum at Harvard, plus it represented my Rio Hondo Police Academy series well. I chose the “Simulcast Race” image from my Santa Anita book because it is one of my favorites. I also wasn’t looking to inspire any more debate over the horseracing industry which an actual horse related image might do. I chose the photo of the Giants coaches to represent my Cactus League series because it really captured how pure spring training used to be. In today’s world I would never be able to access to stand in that position to capture that exposure. I liked the Mariano Rivera image to represent my Wrigley-Fenway-Tiger series because it would help transition well into my street photography images. An interesting side note had never printed the image as large as I did for this exhibition and when I did I found new and exciting details in the image I had not seen in the 23 years since I had made the exposure. The view of the World Trade Center from the Empire State Building was another obvious image and one I have wanted to show more.

After selecting those 8 images I figured I probably had enough images but decided to choose more images so I would have options in my wall design since I was going to figure things out as I installed it. The ASU pool party image was a good representation of my Alphaville series and I came across a scan of ERA activists from San Francisco in 1989 which really jumped out at me. I have become so tired of today’s world with people who have differing opinions screaming at one another and thinking they are properly applying their 1st Amendment Rights. After these choices I selected five recent images that I keep returning to. I wanted to have images from Chicago, New York, and Newport Beach in the show if I could. One image was in color from the 4th of July and I didn’t think it would fit but I decided to print it and just see if there was a place for it.

Since the prints were just for this exhibition I added text to the prints below the image so I wouldn’t have to deal with identification labels. I put the image information and because they were on display in a camera store I also added information about the camera I used and the film type for the older images. I also listed information if the image was in a permanent collection or had been in a recent prominent exhibition. After making the 15 different prints I made a single 8.5 x 11 print with all the images on it in a rough design which I thought might work. Actually I thought the first four rows would be as they were and the last row was just a reference point of the images, that I would only use a couple of them maybe.

The reference sheet I used while designing installation of the exhibition.

I wrote the artist statement specifically for this exhibition with the primary focus being my connection to Pasadena. Realizing many viewers would be passing by quickly I used bold font to highlight key points so the statement could be quickly scanned. Because I am always trying to increase the exposure of my work I created several QR codes with links to my Instagram and website then created an information page for people who wanted to learn more about my work. I also created a smaller page with a QR code link for the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition.

I decided to pin the images to the wall, because it was a quick and secure way to install the show plus it would do minimal damage to the wall. I also liked the look and feel of presenting that way, but I knew I needed to have metal push pins for it to be right. I thought the idea of the pins was a simple one until it came time to buy them. I literally had to go to four stores to finally get enough pins for the exhibition, thank God for Office Depot still carrying them.

I began the installation process with a tape measure, note pad, and math. I also realized the angle of the floor next to the wall was greater than I remembered since it really a ramp allowing handicap access to the store and easy carryout for large amounts of rental equipment. So obviously the sight line of the space changes and I had to take that in to account.

I always remember from my Northlight days at ASU that the center line of artwork should be like 56” from the floor. I know I am 6’5” and that I like a higher center point, plus I realized the way the store was configured I wanted to have at least some of the prints high enough to be seen above the displays to draw viewers in. Using blue painters tape I marked the center line from the floor up. I taped up a couple test prints and I had my friend who is much shorter than I am go along the wall to find what her eye level was. From that point I went by feel and judgement to adjust the center line and then kept it fairly consistent to the floor by measuring for each new row of prints.

I found that double stacking two vertical images made them too hard to view so I adjusted the Pasadena PD images to go side by side. I decided to pin the prints keeping a 3” gap between all prints. I also used my level with a built-in ruler to keep things accurate. I then kept putting up prints, designing as I went. I had the one-color print left over, but I soon found a place for it. The next section of the wall surface changed, and it had a large framed color print on it which was is a permanent thing but lots of blank wall before it. So, I found a home for the 15th print.

I know this is a relatively long blog post on a simple thing but I thought some readers may find value with the insight in to my process.

This Samys Camera store is located at 1759 E. Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California and is open daily 8am to 6pm. I am not sure how long the exhibition will be up, most likely through the end of March.

William Karl Valentine with Scott B. Davis at the Center for Creative Photography’s Legacies of LIGHT

Scott B. Davis at Legacies of LIGHT - Center for Creative Photography

February 9, 2020

At the Center for Creative Photography’s Legacies of LIGHT I also had a chance to catch up with Scott B. Davis , someone I always enjoy talking with. Scott is an amazing photographer and founder of Medium Photo which is a non-profit organization centered around educational workshops and annual photo festival in San Diego. I have attended several of the festivals and they are fantastic, they include lecture series and portfolio reviews. Scott’s passion for photography is so strong, I appreciate all his leadership with Medium, and especially the images he captures as a photographer.

Scott currently has a platinum print in an exhibition at the Getty which was recently featured in the LA Times Entertainment and Arts section, The platinum print exhibition runs through May 31st and also includes prints by photographers such as Tina Modotti and Alfred Stieglitz. Also at the Getty until March 31st is “Unseen” featuring works from the Getty’s permanent collection which have never been exhibited at the Getty before. This exhibition celebrated the 35th anniversary of the Getty’s photography collection.

Pasadena PD Officers Naum Ware & Darin Craddolph conducting a search warrant related to rock cocaine sales. March 1987 (PPD-177 #23)

Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition - Center for Creative Photography

January 14, 2020

I am proud to announce that a print of the above image has been included in the Center for Creative Photography’s Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition which opened December 13th and runs through the end of May 2020.

This image is from my Pasadena Police Department Series which is one of my most important bodies of work. I began the series while studying at Arizona State University and exhibited the work at the Northlight Gallery just before I graduated. The ASU faculty arranged for Van Deren Coke, at the time the Director of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Photography Department, to meet with me privately in the gallery to review my work. He compared my images to Larry Clark’s work which will always be one of the highlights of my career as a photographer. Photographing the Pasadena PD eventually led me to chose to a career in law enforcement which allowed me to continue photographing more than most other professions would have. The Pasadena PD series has also had increased interest in recent years and I should be producing a book of this work in the near future.

As for my image above, as stated in the title it was from a search warrant related to rock cocaine sales. For me, I saw the damage first hand that the rock cocaine era in Southern California did in the 1980’s. Pasadena’s Northwest area was ravaged with drive by shootings, property crimes by “baseheads”, and gang activity. So many good people lived in that part of town and they basically had to stay inside at night for their own protection. I knew people I went to grade school with who were killed during this time, like Danny Harris who was shot in a drive by shooting while selling rock cocaine. Then I also saw the harm done to small children like the boy in this photograph, Officers like Naum and Darin cared about the community and worked hard to make it safer by taking people involved in crime off the street. An approach that worked in many ways then which we have abandoned today because of political concerns. Could the approach in the 1980’s have been better? Yes with hindsight things can usually be done better but the over all approach to fighting crime prior to 2000 was better for society than it is being portrayed today. Naum made over 1,000 hand to hand undercover “buys” of narcotics during his career, most all in dangerous situations. Darin, recently retired after a 30 year career. Both these officers cared and put their own safety on the line to protect others. Some people today may wrongly interpret this image as oppression by the means of law enforcement, I know the truth behind it because I was there.

To be included in this exhibition has helped me achieve several long time career goals. I wanted to have my work exhibited at the Center for Creative Photography, arguably the most important photography archive in the world, and eventually have some of my prints added to their permanent collection. Being included in the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition accomplished both goals, with hopefully more to come at the CCP in the years ahead. One other interesting thing I discovered at the opening, for me at least, is this is the first time one of my prints has been in an exhibition with a Garry Winogrand print. (Winogrand is my favorite photographer - I traveled to New York in 1988 to see John Szarkowski’s retrospective of Winogrand at MoMA, to San Francisco to see his entire Women are Beautiful series exhibited at Pier 24 in 2017, and again to San Francisco in 2014 to see the SFMoMA retrospective of Winogrand’s work.)

The Qualities of LIGHT Exhibition documents the history of the LIGHT gallery which existed in New York City between 1971 and 1987. This was a critical time in the development of the medium of photography being accepted as art and LIGHT was one of the first galleries to concentrate solely on exhibiting photography. This exhibition examines LIGHT’s impact on the medium which continues on to this day. One important aspect of the LIGHT gallery was it showcased emerging artists and had work from multiple photographers readily available for view by patrons in flat files. My print was selected, along with other emerging artists’s prints, to document that important part of LIGHT.

For more information about the exhibition please follow this link: The Qualities of LIGHT: The Story of a Pioneering New York City Photogaphy Gallery.

To learn more about the history of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona please click here.