eric dubnicka

10-9-11(photography)

October 10, 2011

Photography.  After posting that I have prints and cards of digital photographs available to purchase the other day I’ve heard a few skeptics wondering what the hell’s going on?  I thought you only painted!  But, unbeknownst to many I actually shoot quite often, have a few photo exhibitions on my resume, and works from three different photography series in the collection of the Tweed Museum.  My old Canon Xti, the one which a day after I bought it I had in a plastic bag while shooting underwater bubbles made by crashing waves in the big lake, is still kicking along.  I’ll post a few of the those images for old time sake someday.  I also shoot film, mainly medium format through modified camera’s I’ve made, and have developer, stop bath and fixer mixed up in the basement, ready to soup up the couple rolls I just shot the other day.  I’m not process oriented enough to be formal with a camera, nor do I have the income to keep up with the “latest and greatest”, so I approach photography from an experimental standpoint.  I ask questions, test and problem solve.  I ask myself, “How can I tweak what I have to make something original.”, much the same as I do within my other artforms.

That said, I’m excited by this “black out” series.  On one hand, the work requires a little more photoshop than I or my weary old Mac would like but then again, I hit a couple buttons and I’m done compared to the thousands of hours spent on the computer “cleaning and balancing” images that most “traditional” photographers do.  Let’s not kid ourselves, in this day and age I believe the only thing that really matters in the end is, How does it look on the wall?  In this series what I am really doing is using the camera as a non traditional mark-making tool.  The works are abstract, at least for the most part and nontraditional.  In fact I would consider them aesthetically and compositionally comparable to my abstracted minimal paintings.  I find the process quite unique, enjoyable and it’s a challenge to create a quality shot, probably one “keeper” out of, oh, 75-100.  In time I’ll also share with you the drawings I’ve done over night photographs, but you’ll just have to be patient.  For now, here’s one of the black out series and click HERE for a link to see a few more:

And click HERE for a link to abstract art on fineartamerica.com!