Peter Liepke
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Honestly I’m not at all interested in making any deep political, social, or philosophical statements with my photographs whatsoever. There are enough inequities, social ills, and sadness in the world already that the media covers incessantly.
“Where is it written that our sensibilities must be sullied by the seamier side of life along with our intellects? We know the world is a vale of tears. Must art pile it on in yet heavier doses? There was a time when the world thought that the artist was chosen, and that they were on a mission not to tell us what we have but what we might have if we’d only get our act together and see beyond the obvious. Art was supposed to transcend life, not imitate it.
Crap is obvious – and I for one am wearied by its presence. Show me please the light at the end of the tunnel. Show me yet once again how beauty can nourish my inner being. Don’t show me what is, show me what can be, and how I might get there – even if only in my mind – as I lose myself in a painting, a musical score, a poem, or photograph”.
Raymond Steiner, Editor Art Times Journal
I make my photographs because quite simply I have to. They are a part of me, and who I am. I am constantly inspired by the beauty, strength, and vitality of New York City. My pictures are made solely by hard work, patience, and quiet observations of every day life using a 100 year old Graflex 4x5 camera, and 19th century printing processes. My methods and approach are hardly trend setting in our digital age of rapid fire cameras and gigabytes; however, I believe it brings my work back to the roots of photography in its purest form.
The craftsmanship of the print is also extremely important to me. It is my belief that the final print and its execution are as important as the photograph itself. All of the prints are handmade myself using three different time honored and rare 19th century printing processes. I have a deep appreciation for all of the many alternative processes. My personal favorites are the combination of Gum Bichromate, Platinum Palladium, and the Oil print processes. The prints are all made via contact printing using ultra violet light from large format digital waxed paper negatives, they are printed on 140lb hot press water color paper.
Most importantly though in our digital age I would far more prefer to have the viewer make a connection to my subject matter, composition, and mood of the picture I have created. It is never my intent to dazzle the viewer with technical clarity.
But I can at the very least make an attempt to show what we could be.
Joy Goldkind
Galleries:
Joy Goldkind uses the historic bromoil process as a tool to express her fine art portraits. The images are hand-crafted using brush and inks, which adds a layer of mystery to the photograph. These images capture the spirit of the person rather than the realist representation of the subject. Here we see a mixture of fantasy and realism that capture the inner most persona of a person. Bromoil was used by photographers of the pictorial movement because they wanted their work to have a more artistic rendering. It is this step away from the clear photographic interpretation that I am looking for in my images. This process uses a bromide silver gelatin image, which is then bleached to remove the silver content. Lithographic inks are used to replace the silver that has been removed by the bleaching.
Joe Profita
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Sight is the sense I value the most. I am drawn to quiet, beautiful places where I can escape life's complexities. At the risk of trying to sound overly 'significant', I find myself looking for small portions of a scene that are perfect, what I interpret as a window to God. I began photographing in color as a means of simply remembering these scenes, a visual record. I saw Edward Weston prints in the early 1970�fs and my interest in the medium changed. His monochrome images captured these perfect visual moments flawlessly. Since then I have worked primarily with silver, and more recently with iron and palladium materials. I think I am finally getting at the root of what I 'see'. My photographs are simply window views of something that has touched me...a bit of God?