Slate Magazine Feature

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Slate Magazine's David Rosenberg regarding my Pasadena Police Department Series.  Check out the on-line article here: 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2014/11/05/william_karl_valentine_an_insider_s_look_into_the_pasadena_police_force.html

George Eastman House Visit

I am in Rochester this weekend for my daughter's ice hockey tournament which allowed me a chance to visit The George Eastman House again which is always worth the trip.

Their history of photography and photographic equipment exhibitions are great and up to the moment; they now have a drone with a GoPro on display.  Dawoud Bey's The Birmingham Project is  a solid exhibition and I was really impressed with Robert Burley's The Disappearance of Darkness which documents the abandoned buildings of film manufacturing giants like Kodak, Polaroid, and Agfa.  The images are powerful, and reminded me of my visit to Bethlehem's abandoned steel mills.  At first glance they may look simple but I found them very deep.  If you can't make it to Rochester I encourage you to at least look up Burley's work or find the catalogue, especially if you ever photographed much with film.

The visit also included a very nice meeting with curatorial staff members Jamie Allen and Will Green about my work.

Me and Jamie infront of The History of Photography exhibition at GEH.

Phoenix Art Museum - Infocus Self-Published Photo Book Exhibition

                       Phoenix Art Museum
                             August 23 to September 28, 2014
               Doris and John Norton Gallery for the Center for Creative Photography


Just a few more days left in the Phoenix Art Museum's Infocus Juried Self-Published Photo Book exhibition.  I plan on heading out next Thursday to see it and my book Alphaville which was accepted in to this exhibition.

                   http://infocus-phxart.org/photobooks/

Alphaville - Arizona State University in the 1980's

 

 

 

I graduated from Arizona State University in the fall of 1986 with a BFA specializing in Photography.  One of the projects I developed while in school was a documentation of student life, with a focus on the social aspects of football games and then the Greeks.  A number of these images were published in a yearbook documenting the university and at the time I made a small mockup of a potential book of just my photographs.  I have come across these images from time to time I have been focused on other work.

Over the past couple years I have seen increase in documentary images from the 1960’s and 1970’s showing up in galleries and exhibitions.  This fact prompted me to revisit my work from the 1980’s anticipating a pending market and interest for images from this era.  During the process I found my mockup book as well a book of proof prints.  In July I saw a call for entries by the Phoenix Art Museum for a Self-Published book exhibition and decided to push forward with producing a book from my photographs taken at ASU.

I had about two weeks to scan images and negatives then edit and create the book.  I decided to use MyPublisher to create the book because of the deadline.  I had to have the book shipped rush delivery directly Phoenix to make the deadline.  Happily the book was accepted in to the exhibition.  I plan on doing a small printing run of the book now on another self-publishing site to lower the production cost and get it out to more people.

The title is derived from several things.  First, there was the German band Alphaville who in 1984 released the song “Forever Young”.  Turning 50 last year, has given the song have deeper meaning for me now.  Then there is the fact that many of these photographs were taken on Alpha Drive, the street which was the fraternity row at ASU.  Finally people in fraternities and sororities seem to have more bravado, confidence, and energy than any other group – they are often the Alphas on campus.

Photographs freeze a fraction of a second of history and preserve things how they were for eternity.  I like that about the medium.

Garry Winogrand - Book from SFMOMA exhibition

This post is long overdue but still I wanted to get it up.

In the spring of 2013 I was able to make it up to SFMoMA for the Winogrand exhibition.  I always enjoy viewing his work and this exhibition was excellent.  I loved seeing all of Winogrand's iconic images again as well as so many never seen before photographs.  When Winogrand died in 1984 he left behind approximately 10,000 unprocessed rolls of film because he photographed more than he could keep up with.  Luckily these unprocessed rolls of film, went to the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson where they were finally developed and catalogued. SFMoMA and The National Gallery of Art considered Winogrands entire body of work now and co-produced what is now my favorite exhibition.  I had a chance to see John Szarkowki's Winogrand exhibition at MoMA, in New York, in 1988 and that exhibition had a huge impact on me as a photographer.  The 1988 exhibition was my favorite until I saw SFMoMA's exhibition.

Although the exhibition has moved on the catalogue is still available here.  SFMoMA and Yale University Press published "Gary Winogrand" which is the most complete retrospective of his work.  Edited by Leo Rubinfien the book has contributions by Tod Papageorge, Sarah Grenough, Susan Kismaric, Erin O'Toole, and Sandra S. Phillips.  The book provides great insight and shows all his iconic images as well as a vast number of images from the unprocessed rolls of film.  If you like Winogrand this book is a must have

The current Winogrand exhibition is now headed to Europe, below is the schedule

Schedule: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, March 9–May 31, 2013; National Gallery of Art, Washington, March 2–June 8, 2014; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May–August 2014; Jeu de Paume, Paris, October 2014–January 2015; Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid, March–June 2015.

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James Turrell featured on art21.org

http://www.art21.org/artists/james-turrell

I just came across this on line and think these spaces Turrell designs are fantastic.  From a photographer's perspective it seems like the space is constructed in such a way that viewer is almost forced to approach the work in a similar way a photographer photographs.  You have the factor of light, you have a frame, and you have to be patient to see how things play out.