Greetings! Winter quarter was filled with creativity, and we are all looking forward to sunnier and longer days this spring here at PCNW. For this quarter’s member showcase, we are featuring the work of Michael Sobel, Joel Durand, Peter Alspach, and Jungho Bang. We would like to thank them for their submissions. Our members continue to impress us with their work, and we encourage you to submit your work for next quarter’s member showcase.
We often receive more submissions than we can feature. If you were not selected, please submit again, especially if you have new work to share. The deadline to submit for the next showcase is June 15, 2025.
If you are a PCNW member, and would like to submit to our Member Showcase, you can do so by clicking here.
Not a member, but interested in this opportunity? You can sign up here. Membership benefits not only include highlights like this one, you also receive discounts on classes, workshops, facilities rentals, and merchandise; as well as perks that include 20% off rentals, 10% off inkjet paper, 10% off darkroom paper & chemicals at Glazer’s Camera, and 10% Off Framing Services at Lucky Rabbet Framing, and 10% off of coffee at Drip Drip coffee house.
What are you working on?
First of all, I’m incredibly indebted to PCNW. The resources, expertise, and teachers have advanced my own practice beyond anything I could have done on my own! I move back and forth between projects small and large. I recently finished the small book, Food Establishment Closures Report, a study of restaurants closed by the King County Health Department, using images from Google street view and crowd-sourced photos. One project that is eternally “in progress” is Cartography of the Invisible, which is a mapping and exploration of the places of tragic events. (You can see an unfinished form below).
Artist Statement
The book form is especially dear to me – it can have a more complex expression than a single image, and I love the materiality of paper and ink. I find great satisfaction in printing and binding my own books as one-of-a-kind or small hand-made editions. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with book structures that can shift the scale of the viewer’s experience (especially for landscapes) and alter the normal progress through a book. The recent book, Pictures from a Train, is one attempt (see link below).
Mainly I make portraits – of people, objects, a place, a memory, a question. My commitment is to go beyond the simple appearance of things, while remaining rooted in their physical presence. I hope that my work can move others to question, wonder, explore.
Joel Durand
What are you working on?
I like to observe the patterns created by nature, either with lines or with masses, densities. I am working on a series of pictures of clouds, and trees.
Peter Alspach
What are you working on?
I have titled this project Permanent Damage?
These images come from explorations developed during winter quarter in Digital Photography 1.
Artist Statement:
2018 launched me into a nightmare of depression and insomnia whose destabilizing echoes still vibrate. Days spent in a haze of sleep deprivation, panic attacks that sent me fleeing, physical collapses of depression, and medication reactions that sent me to the ER. These images capture that pain and chaos, the emotive cycle of recovery and relapse that continues, and the lingering question: will I ever heal or have I been irreversibly altered?
Jungho Bang
What are you working on?
I explored the self-referential nature of photography and the relationship between seeing and being seen, using mirrors, screens, and recursion.
This project, my final for Digital 1, also reflects the quarter itself.
Artist Statement:
can camera see itself?
can photo reflect itself?
can image show itself?
