2008 Woodie Awards
Gallery Features Classic Photographs
A new photography exhibit paying homage to classic photography opens at Valley College.
Marc Howard
Issue date: 3/1/06 Section: Valley Life
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All of the images in the exhibit, showing in the Valley College art galley in the art building through March 30, were produced long before the present era of digital image-making. The show is a tribute to an exhibition of work by some of the world's most well-recognized photographers held in 1954 called "Perceptions: a Photographic Showing from San Francisco," and includes the work of 28 of the 46 photographers whose work was included in the original show, including Ansel Adams, Minor White, Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston.
"This exhibition celebrates a group of photographers that includes some of the best-known and finest to ever work in California," said Dennis Reed, Valley's dean of arts.
The opening reception for the show, held last Wednesday, was attended by Merg Ross and Dodi Weston Thompson who contributed work to both the 1954 show and the present one. Thompson, former assistant to Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, founded Aperture Magazine and was the lead organizer of the 1954 show. She spoke to a packed lecture hall in the art building about her origins as a photographer, how the original show came about and about working with the great photographers she has known in her life.
The quality of photographs in the exhibit reflect the rare talent of the technicians who shot them.
Pirkle Jones' "Figure in the Rain" gives you the chills when you look at the windswept dresses of the women in overcoats and the umbrellas dotted with beads of rain.
A ghostly feeling is lent to Larry Colwell's "Dancers" by the blurred movement of the dancers; some of them seem to be at two places at one time.
You feel sympathy or pity when you look at John Bertolino's "The Girl on the Bench." You can't help but wonder what has happened to the woman or what she's feeling as she sits almost doubled over on that bench, leaning over on a small suitcase, her face covered, head rested in the crook of her arm.
Provocative images such as these are representative of a daily life in a bygone era. The show presents a rare opportunity to view these photographs firsthand; an opportunity that should be taken advantage of.
