My one man show opened today in the Photography Gallery of Riley Hall of Art and Design at the University of Notre Dame.  If you are in the South Bend area in the next month please take a look, it closes on September 31st.

I also was chosen to be a finalist in Critical Mass, a Photolucida competition designed to offer exposure opportunities to emerging and mid career artists. See the full list of artists HERE.

A few more benches, oh and a person!

After examining my images a little more thoroughly I think this image may be more successful because it gives a better understanding for the plaza outside the structure as well as the scale and design for the structure.  I however am not as sure about the placement of the bench in this image because it seems too perfectly centered.

These are a few bench snaps from my last trip.

Sometimes things are just too huge for me to be able to get the right shot.  Next time I head through Kentucky I will have to try this one again.  I have been thinking a lot about diptychs and triptychs and I think this was a missed occasion for one. In this instance I backed up as much as possible to try and capture the full scene but ended up with too much empty space and still did not include the important detail of the structure that was built on what was once the stadium field.

I have some what of an obsession with benches and other furniture I find about town and on my shooting trips to other cities.  Here are a few of my favorites:

After a few months of frustration with blogger (because they stopped supporting ftp publishing) I have finally figured out how to do this through WordPress and my hosting service.  Unfortunately I appear to have lost all of my images from previous posts (I have a backup but it could take months to go back through.

Anyway I am excited to have this working again and post up some new images.  This one above is from my last major shooting trip during spring break in Iowa.  Now that the wedding craziness has settled and my summer class is winding down I am planing another road trip and starting to work on other project ideas.

Proof is a new exhibition opening at Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago this friday.  Proof is a an exhibition with 26 artists that agreed to show their film contact sheets (proof sheets) along with their finished print.  Some of my favorite artists are included in this exhibition.  Proof runs July 16th-September 4th, opening reception is friday July 16th from 5-8pm.

Here is an interior shot of that wall from the previous post.  I was thinking about that image and I don’t think that it is as strong as it could be.  Keep in mind first that it is meant to be seen much larger than a computer screen so that you would connect more to the bench and notice little details like the orange smashed on the ground.  I have a wider shot of the same building from a higher vantage point that includes the staircases through either set of windows and I feel it exaggerates the height of the building while giving a better feel for how large the plaza in the foreground is.

While composing the image above I heard a strange repetitive knocking sound coming from behind the wall.  It turns out that the above mentioned plaza was a favorite place for some students to play racquet ball.  I imagine the initial purpose may have been for outdoor performances or even a good place to put tables and chairs for students to study at.

This interior space (the lobby) has some artwork hung on the side walls and has apparently been used for many purposes over the years.  Just before I made this image there had been a class meeting in these chairs.   With the new addition to the structure this wall will be torn and the lobby will be doubled in size (so long to racquet ball).

Over the four years or so that I have been working on this project I am amazed how much changes.  I often go back to a site to rephotograph it and find that tables are missing or new art has been put in.  This time when I was photographing I knew I had to get it right because not more than a month later there would be an addition added and this wall would be wiped out.  See addition images here.

I have always appreciated those that photograph architecture for purposes of preservation/documentation such as Richard Nickel, Bob Thall, or Lee Bay.  For more information about preservation go to Preservation Chicago.  But, I have been thinking about how I want my work to be thought of.  I don’t want my work to be in the preservation category.  Yes, from time to time I really enjoy making a more traditional image of an architectural landmark, but otherwise I like to keep “my work” rather anonymous.

Over time I have had some frustration and enjoyment from people asking where this or that image was taken.  The frustrating part in that  is that they are focussed on finding out where the image was made rather than thinking about the purpose of the work.  The enjoyable part is when someone swears that they know the location and ends up wrong,  and they recognize that this type of ersatz objects are put in to this type of architecture everywhere.

And this is why I keep the images anonymous.  Who didn’t go to a university  or visit a civic center with at least one brutalist pice of architecture, they are everywhere.  But, no one seems to like them.  Obviously I do, but I am not on a quest to document them before they are all gone.  Yes, If it were possible I might just go to every piece of Architectural Brutalism on the face of the earth before they (or I) are gone.  But, I would go for the experience, not to photograph.

I feel that my work is about the experience.  I adventure out in to the architectural landscape of glass metal and cement (and a lot of cement there is).  I go to explore what man has built, and I experience it.  I wander campus after campus and wait for a reaction to the cement landscape.

People always ask me (you know who you are) why there are never any people in my images.  I always say that I don’t like to photograph people, but I really think it is because people get in the way of my experience. I choose locations and times that are free of people.  If there are people present I will often come back an hour later when they are gone.  Part of my process of photographing is to sit in the space and think about the design, think about how people use it, people watch if  anyone passes through, and then plan out my shot.  With my best images I often spend 15 minutes or even a half hour experiencing before making the right image.

I have attempted to include people in my shots, but I don’t like anything I do because I feel people will focus more on the individual and loose sight of their interaction with the architecture.  This is something I should probably continue to work on.

I really enjoy the new work Brad Moore has on his website. This facade amuses me every time I see it.  He has had a tremendous amount of recognition for only three years as an exhibiting artist.

The last day or two is the first time I have really had to edit the images I shot in Iowa over my spring break.  This is the Art Building West on the University of Iowa campus in Iowa city.  In 2008 the campus flooded and this building was in the middle of it.  The building has rust lines at a height of eight feet on the main level (about half way up the windows).  Two years later the building is still in the process of being completely gutted.

Jessica Bruah, Shamrock Hotel Resort and Suites, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin

New Romantics, an exhibition curated by friend Mike Reinders, opens this weekend. Mike put in a ton of work gathering this group of artists and prepping the space.

April 22-May 9th
Open Thurs-Sun, 12-6pm
1200 W 35th St.
Enter from parking lot on Racine
Take the elevator to the Fourth Floor (4003)

Opening Reception
April 24th, 5-9pm

Closing Reception
May 8th, 5-9pm

In a recent conversation with some of my students I was asking them to describe the mood of their work.  I wanted them to not only describe the mood they felt when making the work, but also the mood they feel when looking at the work, and the mood they want the audience to feel.

An analogy of a soundtrack was refereed to during our conversation.  a soundtrack like a recipe of multiple moods and images.  One student described their work in reference to exact songs that have the same emotions as the images he/she makes.   The final body of images becomes an album rather than a single greatest hit that is more powerful because of the variety of emotion being mixed into the greater set of images. 

I often listen to music while making work and I have come to realize how much music can affect my process of shooting, productivity, and my ability to think/process a space (My best images are made when listening to music with similar mood to my images ).

While I often listen to a lot of punk while making work, I think that a lot of music by these artists would be in the soundtrack to my work:  Cat Stevens, Coldplay, Pearl Jam, Pink Floyd, Tracy Chapman, and a lot of Smashing Pumpkins.

What is your soundtrack?

I learned about a great new piece of technology for photographers today called Eye-Fi.  Eye-Fi are new wireless transmitting SD media cards that allow you to automatically upload your photos to your computer through the internet.  The cards come in sizes of 2-8 gb and price between $50-$150.  The top of the line model will transmit RAW files at class 6 speeds and can be set to automatically backup or automatically delete files once they have been safely downloaded to your specified folder on your computer (or one of 25 photo sharing or social networking sites).  For the real nerd you can also use it for geotagging images.

This is one of the things that makes me really drool over the new 18 megapixel Canon Rebel T2i (less than $800 for the body).

The past month I have been real busy and forgot to blog.  One of the things I was working on was a little update to my site.  I made my images a little larger and have added a few more.  I am currently working on choosing the proper edit but there is lots of variety for now.  If you have any suggestions or see any problems please let me know. 

Please join me for the opening of my new show at UIC Thursday evening 4-7pm. The Address is: Art Lounge, UIC Student Center West, 828 South Wolcott Ave. This is the west end of the UIC campus near Damen so you could take a Damen bus south to Polk and go one block east, or take the pink line to polk and walk two blocks west. There is also plenty of metered parking within a block or two walk. The space is in the south east corner of the building so enter from the south doors (near the center of the block) and turn right. The gallery is next to the bookstore in the corner past the stairs. Cheers, Nate

Over the summer I spent a good amount of time photographing in Michigan. This is one of my favorites for the vibrant colors. This was about 20 minutes for the exposure because it was inside of a parking garage at about 11pm. Unlike most of the rest of my recent images it has a slight angle rather than the the strait on deadpan mirror symmetry and the window opens up the flat plane in an odd way showing that we are standing inside looking out rather than the opposite (my typical viewpoint).