Landscapes of the Mind
Bruno Chalifour and Howard Koft
Show runs May 4 - June 26, 2021
Bruno Chalifour and Howard Koft
Show runs May 4 - June 26, 2021
Artist Statements
COVID Confinement Landscapes 2020
Bruno Chalifour
Rochester, April 2021
I have been attracted to photography since my teenage years because of its imaging power: extracting a small portion of the world, ordering its elements within a frame to tame reality and give it a pleasant and meaningful organization has been a fascinating endeavor. For practical and financial reasons I started within black and white in the 1970s, then when color became more available I worked with it. But unless the intention of the image was color per say, the results were often too real. They looked too much like a window opened onto the world where the spectator would only pick the details they were interested in. Black and white is more abstract (it lacks the colors of the real world), it allows the photographer to eliminate distracting elements when too colorful, to play with an infinite palette of grays or extreme black and white (contrast). I have become fascinated by what has been called “the fine print,” the harmonies of (gray) tones, the softness and depth provided by the combination of wide format film or sensor and lenses, the haptic esthetic experience it may provide.
After dealing with reportage, photojournalism, and street photography for years, I finally realized that I wanted to slow the rhythm of my photography down, to imbue it with a more deliberate and contemplative dimension. As a result, my interest shifted to landscape photography, its intuitive as well as thoughtful and controlled approach, its relationship with two key elements: light and nature. I found that with landscape photography the potential metaphoric possibilities of photography, at the confluence of inner and outer worlds, could become more available to me and the viewer, and this on our own terms—terms that did not have to match.
I work in series as they leave less room to potential accidents, and are more likely to inform the viewer about the photographer’s distillation of intuition, deliberate intent, and esthetics. I do not seek exotic landscapes. For my personal series, I only photograph new landscapes once I feel comfortable with them, when I start feeling part of them, in fact when they stop being foreign and exotic. My current tendency is to revisit known landscapes with a new eye, new tools, and a now-educated sensitivity. Experience does teach, and make us relate differently to the world, the physical world as well as the emotional world. For this exhibition I have deliberately chosen a local landscape to convey that sense of familiarity I have just mentioned, and to share with the “beholder” (whose taste is sometimes hard to define) what a particular sensitivity and expertise can bring to a familiar, sometimes overlooked, landscape.
For More about the Artist:
http://brunochalifour.photoshelter.com
https://sites.google.com/site/brunochalifour
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Stream of Consciousness
Howard Koft
May 2021
I have spent the vast majority of my life thinking sometimes out loud but mostly to myself It always seemed to be the natural thing to do In the early years of my photographic art career I thought one day to add abstraction to my portfolio of urban and rural landscapes I made an image of large mounds of small rocks that I came upon while driving through Mumford It was quite successful (MAG Rochester Finger-Lakes Exhibition 1989 Light Impressions Award for Excellence in Color Photography and Everson Museum Syracuse WCNY art invitational VIII1990 3rd place and it graced the cover of the June/July 1995 issue of the NYS dental journal.)
Two years later I altered a rather nondescript landscape near Medina recognizable as a hill with grass and a gravel path but with unrealistic color and very high contrast (MAG RFLE 1991) Two years after that this time at Letchworth state park I photographed a small log that had been roughly cut at the park sawmill and again a rather unremarkable image until I turned it upside down and wow it looked like the sun drenched canyons in The Movie Indiana Jones: Search for the Holy Grail (MAG RFLE 1993)
Now jump ahead 28 years with experience making digital photographic images from a limitless expanse of subject matter utilizing a plethora of technological tools to further my intuitive adventures in color photographic art driven by my personal stream of consciousness. I hope you enjoy them.
COVID Confinement Landscapes 2020
Bruno Chalifour
Rochester, April 2021
I have been attracted to photography since my teenage years because of its imaging power: extracting a small portion of the world, ordering its elements within a frame to tame reality and give it a pleasant and meaningful organization has been a fascinating endeavor. For practical and financial reasons I started within black and white in the 1970s, then when color became more available I worked with it. But unless the intention of the image was color per say, the results were often too real. They looked too much like a window opened onto the world where the spectator would only pick the details they were interested in. Black and white is more abstract (it lacks the colors of the real world), it allows the photographer to eliminate distracting elements when too colorful, to play with an infinite palette of grays or extreme black and white (contrast). I have become fascinated by what has been called “the fine print,” the harmonies of (gray) tones, the softness and depth provided by the combination of wide format film or sensor and lenses, the haptic esthetic experience it may provide.
After dealing with reportage, photojournalism, and street photography for years, I finally realized that I wanted to slow the rhythm of my photography down, to imbue it with a more deliberate and contemplative dimension. As a result, my interest shifted to landscape photography, its intuitive as well as thoughtful and controlled approach, its relationship with two key elements: light and nature. I found that with landscape photography the potential metaphoric possibilities of photography, at the confluence of inner and outer worlds, could become more available to me and the viewer, and this on our own terms—terms that did not have to match.
I work in series as they leave less room to potential accidents, and are more likely to inform the viewer about the photographer’s distillation of intuition, deliberate intent, and esthetics. I do not seek exotic landscapes. For my personal series, I only photograph new landscapes once I feel comfortable with them, when I start feeling part of them, in fact when they stop being foreign and exotic. My current tendency is to revisit known landscapes with a new eye, new tools, and a now-educated sensitivity. Experience does teach, and make us relate differently to the world, the physical world as well as the emotional world. For this exhibition I have deliberately chosen a local landscape to convey that sense of familiarity I have just mentioned, and to share with the “beholder” (whose taste is sometimes hard to define) what a particular sensitivity and expertise can bring to a familiar, sometimes overlooked, landscape.
For More about the Artist:
http://brunochalifour.photoshelter.com
https://sites.google.com/site/brunochalifour
+++
Stream of Consciousness
Howard Koft
May 2021
I have spent the vast majority of my life thinking sometimes out loud but mostly to myself It always seemed to be the natural thing to do In the early years of my photographic art career I thought one day to add abstraction to my portfolio of urban and rural landscapes I made an image of large mounds of small rocks that I came upon while driving through Mumford It was quite successful (MAG Rochester Finger-Lakes Exhibition 1989 Light Impressions Award for Excellence in Color Photography and Everson Museum Syracuse WCNY art invitational VIII1990 3rd place and it graced the cover of the June/July 1995 issue of the NYS dental journal.)
Two years later I altered a rather nondescript landscape near Medina recognizable as a hill with grass and a gravel path but with unrealistic color and very high contrast (MAG RFLE 1991) Two years after that this time at Letchworth state park I photographed a small log that had been roughly cut at the park sawmill and again a rather unremarkable image until I turned it upside down and wow it looked like the sun drenched canyons in The Movie Indiana Jones: Search for the Holy Grail (MAG RFLE 1993)
Now jump ahead 28 years with experience making digital photographic images from a limitless expanse of subject matter utilizing a plethora of technological tools to further my intuitive adventures in color photographic art driven by my personal stream of consciousness. I hope you enjoy them.
RSVP to the event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/378088203340980/
The Geisel Gallery is located on the Second Floor Mezzanine Floor of Legacy Tower
One Bausch + Lomb Place, Rochester, NY 14604
The Geisel Gallery is located on the Second Floor Mezzanine Floor of Legacy Tower
One Bausch + Lomb Place, Rochester, NY 14604
