Every year, Alpine Art on South Temple in Salt Lake City, curates a photography exhibit early in the year and is always trying a new twist. This year, Alpine collected photographs of 24 photographers, each one taken during the first 24 hours of the New Year and then asked the photographers to print them to at least one dimension as 24 inches. The exhibit, therefore, seems to be a conglomeration of what these photographers were doing and what they were thinking about on the first day of the New Year in 2012. Amazingly (and possibly because there were requirements for white matting/black framing), this is a very cohesive exhibit representing a variety of styles and genres, but all professionally printed and exhibited. Alpine Art always does excellent work in filling its space and arranging exhibits with a natural flow. Below is a sampling from the 24 x 24 group of photographers.
JEFF CLAY
Trained in the sciences and working professionally in the information technology field, Jeff Clay is largely a self-taught photographer who has been creating images for over three decades. In early 2008, Jeff embarked on a new phase of his life by launching Clayhaus Photography. Since that time, he has been developing his personal approach to fine art photography by acquiring a high level of technical skill as well as refining the creative expression that is his "artistic voice." This has resulted in a growing collection of rich and diverse portfolios.
Reflecting different personal interests, his photographic techniques and subjects are also diverse: Gothic cathedrals, still life, dusty medieval villages, modern architecture, abstract patterns of light and shadow, remote desert valleys. These and more are all parts of the varied canvas that he photographs. He also utilizes different photographic techniques and tools including infrared photography, black and white conversion, bracketed exposure blending, and the panorama format. Since starting Clayhaus Photography, he has had solo shows as well as been part of group gallery exhibits and has participated in a number of festivals and arts-and-crafts markets. He has also won a number of professionally-judged competitions. In 2010, with a fellow photographer, he began Perfect Light Studios as a photographic service providing professional on-location fine-art portraiture, event, commercial, and wedding photography. Check out his website.
ANNE CUMMINGS-ANDERSON
Anne Cummings-Anderson specializes in documentary photography with a focus on social and political issues. She shoots primarily 35 mm film and is currently completing a project that documents Utah refugees and their experiences in Utah.
SIMON BLUNDELL
Simon creates artistic, expressive, and dynamic images fragmented through both time and space. Through experimental use of light, composition, and juxtaposition of content, Simon creates images with originality, depth, and complexity. His creative use of photography gives his work layers of meaning that can be discovered in his images. Born in Salt Lake City in 1974, Simon Blundell studied art, communication, journalism, design, and advertising. These, filtered through the lens of photography, earned him a communication degree in photographic communication. After working with advertising and editorial clients, he returned to school where he earned a Master of Fine Arts (MFA). His education and experience provide him with unique and powerful creative capabilities. He has an original vision, with an added artistic sensitivity that gives his work depth and humanity. Simon continues to explore photography and art in all its aspects. He loves music, literature, film, good food, travel, and motorcycles. Check out his website.
CELINE DOWNEN
Céline's current series focuses on the ever-changing built environment. It started with the unearthing of some old negatives of Bill and Nada’s Café, a classic greasy-spoon diner in Salt Lake that was demolished after Bill’s death in 1999. Standing on the empty lot that once held her favorite 2am-on-Saturday-morning-after-a-night-out spot, she was inspired to begin preserving these places the only way she could, through the lens of her camera. Through photography, she has found a way to document our disappearing cultural landscape. She has spent the last several years chronicling old drive-in movie theatres, motel signs, and other commercial and cultural artifacts of an earlier era that linger in the corners of our modern world. Dorothea Lange once said, "Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still." This is her vision of the artifacts of yesterday, captured and preserved so they may always be here today.
Céline lived in Salt Lake City until she was 11, when her family moved to Evanston, Illinois. She returned to Utah for her freshman year of college, where she neglected her studies in favor of photographing for the Daily Utah Chronicle. After a year, she returned to Chicago to attend Columbia College and earn her BA in photography. Through photography, she documents disappearing features of our cultural landscape. She’s spent the last several years chronicling old drive-in theatres, motel signs, and other commercial and cultural artifacts of an earlier era. Céline moved back to Salt Lake City in 2006 with her husband and now divides her time between taking care of their two sons and photography. Check out her work.
AMANDA MOORE
Amanda Moore is an artist, photographer and teacher living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Originally from Cleveland, Tennessee, she received her BA in 1998 in English with a focus on Fiction Writing from the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. She then worked in a family business for a few years before moving to Atlanta, Georgia. While there, she attended the Art Institute of Atlanta and received an Associates degree in Photographic Imaging and gained experience working with several commercial photographers in the Atlanta area. She came to Salt Lake City to attend the University of Utah, and in 2005, she received her MFA in Photography. Amanda has taught around the state, and now teaches solely as an adjunct professor at Westminster College. She had her first child in 2009 and took a temporary step back from her work to focus on motherhood. This focus has led to her newest body of work. Check out her website.
KELLY GREEN
Kelly's passion for photography began when she was a young child and continues to influence how she sees the world and captures its brilliance. Captivated by texture, space, and the unpredictability of natural light, she photographs the subtle and oftentimes overlooked beauty of the natural world. To avoid post processing, she strives to live by the motto "what you see is what you get." Check out her website.
CHRISTINE BACZEK
Christine Baczek is a photographer and artist based in Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition to Utah, she has lived and studied in Chile, Italy, Chicago, and Santa Fe, returning in 2006 to Utah where she finds the most inspiration for her work. Her research and practice focus on analog and alternative photographic processes like cyanotype, platinum/palladium, chromoskedasic Sabbatier, film, etc. She uses this expertise in historical photographic processes to address ideas of time, perceptions of documentation, and the process of observation. She continues to utilize Utah’s landscape and history in her work, and she is currently the photographer for the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. She is represented by Nox Contemporary, Salt Lake City, Utah. Check out her website.
JILLIAN CAMERON
Jillian Cameron is a native to the state of Utah, whose beauty and diversity have had a great impact on her life, both creatively and personally. Her passion for photography stems from observing her father's love and talent of capturing unique and emotional images. Jillian attended the Art Institute of Salt Lake City to study Interior Design. She left after three years to focus on her family, which continues to be her greatest passion and inspiration. She and her husband, Ian Cameron, are in the process of starting a photography business that will bring a new vision of portraiture to the Utah Valley. Jillian has been published twice in JPG magazine. Check out her work on Facebook.
ROBERT HALL
Robert Hall, a Utah native and 4th generation photographer, has been passionate about photography for more than forty years. His work has won awards internationally and has been shown in many museums and galleries. His professional work includes fine art photography, professional portraiture, figure studies, and commercial imaging. He is also highly respected and recommended for his darkroom techniques and collaborates with other professional photographers throughout the US and Europe to help them realize their vision using advanced photographic methods. Robert's true love and major focus is large format photography. He uses 8" x 10" and 12" x 20" view cameras that create a negative of that size. He then contact prints the negatives by hand using platinum, palladium, silver, and gold. These are archival procedures that may outlast even the landscapes they honor. Photography has been used to capture and hold images for information and for documentation, but in Robert’s photographs, the image is reflective of a mood. Robert states he photographs "not to record or document, but rather to capture and hold, just for a moment, the essence of something greater that exists just beyond our view." His work focuses on connecting forms, lines, and space to create a perspective beyond what is seen in a glance.
Much of Robert’s work presents solitary icons that reflect the American West. No where else in the world has isolation been heralded as such a symbol of strength. American heroes almost always act alone: Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Ernest Hemingway. James Michener wrote, "As a consequence of this, Americans became the loneliest people on the face of the earth…[but] there were compensations. Living alone meant that men had to be more ingenious, which led to inventiveness. Old patterns had to be surrendered, so revolutionary new ones could be more easily accepted." Robert’s images reveal an inner strength of character and solitude of being that resonate within the viewer. As with any piece of art, Robert believes the meaning within his work is created by the viewer: "We sense beauty in a very personal way; our reactions to the outside world are governed by our internal sense of self. Art helps us see with new eyes what we knew was there but did not recognize." Check out his website.
MICHAEL SLADE
Michael Slade has been photographing documentary projects all over the world for the past 20 years. Subjects have been as diverse as North Korean refugees living in China and South Korea, to places as close as Utah's Great Salt Lake. Slade has also worked on a family history project in Sweden, a series photographing locations in Utah where Bigfoot has been seen. An annual project photographing outdoor Nativity scenes keeps him going during the month of December. Slade chooses to use large-format cameras and shoots in black and white. He is using a new material from Harmon/Ilford that creates an in-camera positive which makes images that are not reproducible. Currently, Michael is teaching as an adjunct instructor at Utah Valley University and Brigham Young University. He lives with his wife and two children in Riverton, Utah.
RENEE KEITH
Renee Michele Keith is an artist, makeup artist, and self-taught commercial photographer specializing in digital photography, currently living in Saratoga Springs, Utah. She has been shooting creative, commercial stock photography for over eight years and is currently contributing work to iStockphoto.com and Getty Images. Her photography has been published in thousands of advertisements worldwide including book covers, billboards, and magazine covers. Her images have been used by many international corporations including Scholastic, Kodak, Nikon, Hewelett Packard, Overstock.com, Morgan Jewlers, and Photoshop User Magazine. See her work on her blog.
LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHERS
The full list of photographers at Alpine Art includes Zuzanna Audette, Christine Baczek, Dave Brewer, Drake Busath, Jillian Cameron, Shalee Cooper, Anne Cummings-Anderson, Spencer Davis, Celine Downen, Trish Empey, Laura Ferguson, Kelly Green, Robert Hall, Gerry Johnson, Renee Keith, Amanda Moore, Cat Palmer, Bob Plumb, Zoe Rodriguez, Michael Slade, Tom Thompson, Ann Torrence, Simon Blundell, and Jeff Clay.
WHEN: On display through March 31, 2012
WHERE: Alpine Art, Salt Lake City (430 E. South Temple)
HOURS: M - F (9:00 to 5:30) and Sat (10:00 to 3:00)