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South Light Photographers
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Jerry Atnip
Gone South
There is a place that exists bounded between the middle and the bottom, the center and the right.
A transitory area where the past and the present exist in a familiar tandem. This selection of images is a collection of fleeting moments in this place.The moments between waking and sleep, moonlight and day, fogged and clear, where the exploration of transformations can reveal truth.
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Nicholas Dantona
Confession:
When I arrived in the South from New York the first thing I noticed was the light; a forceful, bright and hot light that commands a response. Mine was to find a good pair of sunglasses. I would later come to know that this metaphor is typical of Northerners.With a blind man’s glasses, this New Yorker would shade his eyes and miss what Sally Mann, in her book Deep South, calls, “the mishmash amalgam of sorrow, humility, honor, graciousness and renegade defiance playing out against a backdrop of profligate physical beauty.”
Of course I would have to be born and raised here to understand this. Just as no Southerner can relate to the melting pot reality of New York City where wave after unrelenting wave of foreign and domestic immigrants jammed into precious little real estate creates a liberal, but protective nature born out of forced tolerance.
No.To me Southern Light is just bright and thick.This light burns out details, turns a landscape vague and romantic as if metered out by a radical poet. It hefts the weight of the day’s heat like a country singer carries a tune, with a resonate twang that pricks and soothes deep in the inner ear.
Shadow in the South carries a special value, like that of a water-well on parched land. It is deep, moist, packed with atmosphere and nourishing. Every living thing in the South learns how to drink from it, or suffer the consequences.
There are not many shades of gray here, as let’s say, in Scotland. Oh no, the Southern sun will not have it.And so, these images accentuate the high contrast left in the absence of a broad middle ground.
There is no need to over-think these images.There are no imbedded political, social or moral meanings.They are just meant to be experienced. If they are to be successful art, then it is only to elicit a mood or a memory, or a shared knowing of what it is to stand in Southern Light.
Note: each image is accompanied by two Quick Read codes. One, printed on the images itself, is a digital signature, where I tell you something about that image.The other is a reading from the book, Southern Light, a collection of poems from twelve contemporary southern poets.The poems are not narratives to these images, but rather something that may put you in a Southern state of mind.
Bio:
Mr. Dantona is an award-winning fine art photographer featured in prestigious collections such as The Tennessee State Museum,The Cumberland Heights Foundation, the Indigo Hotel and various private collections. His photographs are exhibited regularly throughout the US and internationally.
Mr. Dantona is the recipient of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals’ coveted Photoshop Guru Award/Photography. He is also a Finalist in the 2010 Jaob Riis Awards and winner of The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards as well as a Nominee of the Master’s Cup International Color Awards.
His artwork represents a thirty-year journey as TV cameraman, photographer, graphics designer, producer/director and interactive media innovator.
Mr. Dantona was born in the Bronx, NY and has studied Theater, Film and Communication at Emerson College, Suffolk University, SUNY and NYU School of the Arts. He is a Director on the Board for the Brentwood Photography Group and the Society of Nashville Artistic Photographers. He currently lives in Franklin, TN and continues to photograph and exhibit in the U.S. and internationally.
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David Farmerie
As an artist, transplanted from the northeastern part of the United States to the South, I have become acutely aware of the influences that have profoundly affected the work I produce.These influences have not constituted changes to the very core of my creativity, but instead, have added layers and nuances - expanding the palette from which I see the world.
In approaching “Southern Light” I chose to incorporate The South as my subject matter. Working as a documentary photographer for the better part of my 34 year career, I felt the need to deeply explore this aspect of our nation’s culture and heritage - to find it’s significance and translate it for all to understand.
This body of work has spanned a period of 3 years; beginning in 2008, and continuing through to the present.Through the editing process, I gained the realization that I have been able to create these images both as an outsider looking in, as well as someone who lives within, and is gazing around.
This work is about creating a dialogue, a common language. Some of it has been addressed with controversy due to its subject matter: tobacco, and religion - two very present and powerful aspects of life in The South. But this body of work has also brought significance and a positive light to much that has been misperceived. Misperceived not only by those from the outside but also by many who have always lived within.
As a documentary photographer my role has always been one of a storyteller.With this in mind, I have incorporated the inclusion of Quick Read Codes to each image. By incorporating this technology, I am able to further enhance the viewer’s engagement by giving them an additional aspect of involvement.Through the use of these codes the viewer will be given access to short, subject-specific, video clips - thereby taking them deeper into the print hanging before them. Best of all, these videos can be bookmarked, allowing the viewer to revisit their experience as often as they desire, as well as to share with others.
As part of the whole - the photographers of SouthLight Salon, I also participate in exemplifying the reality that Art, and its creation, is very much alive and flourishing in The South.
Robert McCurley
Civil Conundrum
“It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it.”
General Robert E. Lee to Lieutenant General James Longstreet
at the Battle of Fredericksburg (13th December 1862)
With the exception of Washington DC, perhaps no other region in the country commemorates and memorializes war more prolifically than the South.The Civil War, in particular, is iconic in this respect. Scores of southerners entrench themselves in Civil War history and lore. Savvy marketers and opportunists capitalize on the passions of war buffs and turn the War Between the States into profitable business ventures.
The year 2011 marked the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War. Over 30,000 acres of land was purchased in an effort to preserve historic battlefield sites.Thousands of people dressed in period uniforms to reenact specific battles and events. New books were written. iPhone Battle Apps were created.And bloggers typed furiously to debunk and debate controversies surrounding the war’s history and myths.
In the absence of literal fighting and bloodshed, General Lee is proven right; a profound fondness of war lives in the South.
The photographs of Civil Conundrum present a contrast to the fondness by depicting the sadness, loneliness and death often obscured in the midst of contemporary affection.
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Mark Mosrie
Big Hair
As a portraitist and an observer of Southern culture, I have long been fascinated by the phenomenon
known as “big hair.”
Through a series of portraits of proud wearers of these bountiful beehives and bouffants, unbelievable updos and teased tresses, I have made both environmental and studio portraits.
The QR Codes associated with these images may lead to short interviews of the ladies under the big hair.
Jerry Park
Vieux Carre
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