(embiggenable)
I was informed today that my Blue Mountain Lake triptych was accepted into the Arts Center Lake Placid’s annual Fall Juried Art Exhibition.
I feel kinda sheepishly guilty inasmuch as the triptych is a pretty picture of a pretty referent. Sorta like I am betraying my regular referent M.O., aka: the everyday / commonplace world. Although, truth be told, the view depicted in the triptych is an everyday occurrence here in the Adirondacks. So, that written, I’ll just go with the excuse that it is impossible to go through a day without at least one juicy rationalization.
Call it a rationalization but here’s the thing; submitting a “fine art” photograph–described here as a Shore/Meyerowitz/Eggleston style picture–to a juried show in a gallery here in the Adirondacks is somewhat of a fool’s errand. That’s cuz 99.9% of the photographs made by “serious” Adirondack amateurs–an even non-hyphenated serious amateurs–are of the ain’t-nature-grand school of photography. It’s just the nature (pun) of the beast.
That written, my triptych verges on the edge of the pretty-picture zone; even now, before the exhibition opening event, I can hear comments like; why did you cut off the guy in the boat on the left? / you should have moved the pedestrian boat at the dock or at least retouched it out of the picture so that only the vintage Chris Craft boat is featured / and, you should have dialed up the color saturation. Ugh.
In any event, next week I launch my an ADIRONDACK GUIDE project portfolio presentation blitz on the Adirondack gallery world. I do believe that it will elicit a couple of exhibition offers / interest precisely cuz it is not just another ain’t-nature-grand body of work–“body of work” being the operative phrase inasmuch as, while I would never submit a stand-alone picture from this work for juried exhibition consideration, I do believe the cumulative body of work is a refreshing unique, original view of everyday life in the Adirondacks.
And, PS–the book is going to press next week.
FYI, the triptych photographs were made with a Canon EOS IX–an APS film format camera–using 110 color negative film. The print is 14x36” with a 10.5x33.5” image.