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Image credit: Jennifer Zwick
The Photographic Center NW (PCNW™) > Blog

August 2021 Member Showcase

For this month’s Member Showcase, we are featuring the creative work of Robert Rodriguez-Lawson. Read below to learn more about his photography projects these days.

ROBERT RODRIGUEZ-LAWSON – member since 2018

What are you working on?

My objective over the last few months was to complete a set of 12 prints that reflect how COVID-19 has changed my perspective on my city.

Artist Statement

COVID-19 hit us all like a bomb. In an instant, my city shrank to my neighborhood. I lost inspiration. I spent months walking the same circle. Daily. Without a camera. Without purpose. I was unmoored attempting to navigate this new normal of safety requirements, non-stop news, and nowhere to go. 

I needed to find incremental ways of phasing back into interactions with people and places and to reconnect with making art. Pinholes provided a new approach to photography and helped me to rediscover the city that is waking up from a long, painful sleep. There is an aspect of the unknown using a pinhole camera – it’s just a box. I needed to let go of precision and experiment. The distorted view and the long exposures require a new perspective and a reorientation to a city slowly regained.

See more of Robert’s photography online at: https://www.instagram.com/rr_lawson/


Thanks again to Robert for his submission to our Member Showcase. If you’re a member of PCNW and would like to share your photographs, we’d love to hear from you. Complete our online form by the 15th of every month and a jury will review your work for consideration. Not a PCNW Member yet? You can join online today!

July 2021 Member Showcase

For this month’s Member Showcase, we are featuring the creative work of Christy Rey and Barbara Strigel. Read below to learn more about their current photography projects.

CHRISTY REY – member since 2021

What are you working on?

In 2020, I began several online photography classes that focus on telling a subject’s story and finding my voice. The main emphasis is on Environmental Portrait photography. A genre using lighting, photographic techniques and a comprehensive understanding of the subject to create inspirational stories about people, places or things.

Artist statement

Photography infuses my life with interest, magic and compassion. It guides me to “see” a subject beyond first impression and pause with the focused lens to discover a deeper reality. My desire is to reveal a “subjects” story. My tools are digital, black & white film and vintage photography processes. The equipment list spans my maturity, interest and a seasoned sense of wonder. The partnership between myself and the subject is a trusted intimate connection and the hope is for the audience to feel involved. This journey into the creative stimulates my energy as much as the passionate final presentation of the subject’s story.

Learn more about Christy’s work here


BARBARA STRIGEL – member since 2020

What are you working on?

I have begun a series I am tentatively calling “If we were to talk about architecture.” My practice, a hybrid of analogue and digital collage, is an exploration of separation, connection and visual grace in urban space. While creating this series of architectural re-positionings, I am reading the autobiographical writings of Aldo Rossi and finding parallels between his ideas about architecture and my experience with the process of collage.

Learn more about Barbara’s work at: www.barbarastrigel.com


Thanks again to Christy and Barbara for their submission to our Member Showcase. If you’re a member of PCNW and would like to share your photographs, we’d love to hear from you. Complete our online form by the 15th of every month and a jury will review your work for consideration. Not a PCNW Member yet? You can join online today!

April 2021 Member Showcase

For this month’s membership showcase, we are pleased to share the work of David Chui, a member since 2013. We thank David and hope that you enjoy his images.

DAVID CHUI – member since 2013

What are you working on?

A U.S. Forest Services Voices of the Wilderness Alaskan Artist In Resident application

Artist Statement 

The six images are part of the body of work called Broken Windows. They are the exterior windows of Books to Prisoners, located on N 76th St and Greenwood Ave N, next to Versatile Arts. Shot on Kodak TX400 120 film with a Rollei Magic II, an antique camera I bought in a Hong Kong flea market.

I enjoy finding beauty in things that people generally ignore. Each glass panel is like a piece of jewel shining under the Seattle cloudy sky.

I processed the film and then printed them in the traditional darkroom on archival warm-tone fiber paper. The framed photograph is 20″x20″.

You can find more about David’s photography by clicking here


Thanks again to David for his submission to our membership showcase..

If you’re a member of PCNW and would like to share your photographs, we’d love to hear from you. Complete our online form by the 15th of every month and a jury will review your work for consideration. Not a PCNW Member yet? You can join online today!

March 2021 Member Showcase

For this month’s membership showcase, we are pleased to share the work of Joan Dinkelspiel and Janet Heineck. We thank them for their submissions, and we hope you enjoy what they have shared.

JOAN DINKELSPIEL – member since 2011

What are you working on?

A project entitled, “Safe Travels in Covid Time.”

Artist Statement 

Elders are known to reminisce and reflect; I fit the demographic. In my mid-70’s and at high risk during a global Covid pandemic, I hunker down, limiting travel to daily neighborhood walks and monthly forays nearby for provisions. Many Americans dream of retiring and taking trips away from familiar places. Instead, I make images with what is close at hand. I dig in my Seattle basement to excavate an old carousel projector and 35mm film slides I made many decades ago. I travel in my garden and in my laundry room by overlaying images that conjure up memories of times past. Projections from my deck to the neighbors’ trees remind me of a frigid 1971 December in Chartres Cathedral or in a Loire Valley chateau. Overlays on the washer take me to an intact Notre Dame Cathedral decades before the 2019 fire. Others in the laundry to a 1973 boat trip through the Golden Gate, and on the water heater to the summit of Mt. Tateyama, Japan, at sunrise. Safe travels with renewed gratitude for home and memory.

You can find more about Joan’s photography by clicking here


JANET HEINECK – member since 2014

What are you working on?

At the moment, I am working on informal portraits with a particularly contrasty ASA 400 film. This film will teach me a lot about controlling the range of lights and shadows both in exposure and in printing. In Spring quarter’s “Black and White Photography Projects”, I hope to improve these and other darkroom skills and, through much more experience with the camera, to refine ideas for my project for the course.

Artist Statement 

I am drawn to the lines, textures, subtle tones, highlights, and shadows found in nature. Natural light both brilliant and quiet, captured in black and white, can bring new life to ordinary scenes and objects. Such light suggests memory, reflection, and time passing for me: a means of seeing what is right before me, perhaps meditatively but always in a new way. 


Thanks again to Joan and Janet for submitting their work for this month’s showcase.

If you’re a member of PCNW and would like to share your photographs, we’d love to hear from you. Complete our online form by the 15th of every month and a jury will review your work for consideration. Not a PCNW Member yet? You can join online today!

February 2021 Member Showcase

This month, we feature two members for our showcase. Scott Kuehner who has been a member since 2005, and Angshuman Sarkar who recently became a member this year. We thank them for their engagement with PCNW and their contributions to this month’s showcase.

Scott Kuehner – Member since 2005

What are you working on?

I consider myself a Large Format Black and White film photographer and as such my ‘work’ has been on hold since PCNW closed last March. So, until COVID passes and PCNW can re-open to rental folks, I’ll continue to study (ie., look at) photography books, B/W photographs, and contemplate topics such as solarization, masking, toning, and lighting, and importantly, how I can use these techniques to help express my vision. Basically, I miss the darkroom.

Having said that, the images included here are color digital photos from last summer’s PCNW Still Life Class. Even so, I think my personal ‘style’ is apparent

Artist Statement

When I first started taking B/W film classes at PCNW I was attracted to the photographic vision of Brett Weston and Don Worth. But as my experience and skills expanded, photographic books about Blumenfeld, Man Ray, Ralph Gibson and their ilk, now also populate my bookshelves. 

I believe that the common thread that connects these photographic artists and resonates with my vision is their use of contrast, form, simplicity, and ‘extraction’ as Brett Weston would say, rather than abstraction. In my case, whether photographing trees, chipped paint, models in the studio or flowers on my living room table, I see compositions in terms of the organization of objects, contrast, balance and symmetry. And, simplicity.  

As part of an Advanced Black and White Photography class at PCNW, I was able to interview Don Worth. While explaining his printing style, he used a theatrical analogy of how actors exaggerate their emotions so as to ‘project beyond the footlights’. As such, Worth’s compositions are printed so that the viewer makes no mistake as to what the subject of the photograph is. I found this not only an affirmation of what I was trying to do (but didn’t know it at the time), but also as permission to be even more dramatic with my printing. Consequently, I print with the white whites and black blacks only to define the middle grays.

You can find more about Scott’s photography by clicking here.


Angshuman Sarkar – member since 2021

What are you working on?

I recently became a member of your organization. I have been doing landscapes in Black and White for many years now. My website is at www.angshuman.net.

Artist Statement

I try to capture a sense of attachment and intimacy to the landscape through my images. I am drawn to textures because I feel that the textures tell a story of time and the evolution of the land. Be it the erosion of the rocks over millions of years from flooding, or a seasonal harvest that leaves its mark on the field, I try to capture a part of that story and a connection to the land.

I moved to the Pacific North-West about five years back, from Kolkata, India. My formal education is in Computer Science which brings me to this area. But I have always been close to art and have been making images for a long time. 

Angshuman has limited edition prints, signed and numbered, on archival material. You can find out more about his photography by clicking here.


A big thank you to Scott and Angshuman for sharing their work, and showing support for PCNW. 

If you’re a member of PCNW and would like to share your photographs, we’d love to hear from you. Complete our online form by the 15th of every month and a jury will review your work for consideration. Not a PCNW Member yet? You can join online today!

January 2021 Member Showcase

Happy New Year! This month we are showcasing  Kirk Hostetter. Kirk has been a PCNW Member since 2019. He has been working on two exciting projects involving the Duwamish River and living in times of quarantine.

Kirk Hostetter – Member since 2019

What are you working on?

I am currently working on a project involving the Duwamish River, which originated as a collaboration with Wittman Estes Architecture (https://www.duwamishcrossing.net). I am examining the River as an historical, social, and psychological geography by considering the implications of its reduced watershed; its industrialization, urbanization, and alterations; the various attempts made toward recovery; and the evolving access to its banks by the people who live there. As an explorer I have been seeking out the many moments along the water, and along its original meandering path, that allow us to slip between the layers of what was, what is, and what might be.

Selected images here: https://www.kirkhostetter.com/duwamish

My recently completed book, Quarantine Portraits (An Isolated Collaboration of Friends and Objects), compiles portraits of friends and colleagues with objects of their choosing that gained significance to them during COVID’s strange quarantined spring of 2020. These socially distanced photographs represent a directly personal investigation of people’s connections to the items with which they choose to surround themselves. In the book I have paired my portraits with my subject’s text and their own images.

Book here: https://www.blurb.com/b/10481101-quarantine-portraits
Online version here: https://www.kirkhostetter.com/quarantine-portraits

Artist Statement

As an architect I am interested in environments that humans construct for themselves, their uses, intimacies and implications, and how time imprints and alters these relationships. My ongoing project on the Duwamish River is a direct result of these interests, as well as an extension of years spent on the industrialized rivers of my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

To learn more about Kirk’s photography, click here


Many thanks to Kirk for submitting work this month! If you’re a member of PCNW and would like to share your photographs, we’d love to hear from you. Complete our online form by the 15th of every month and a jury will review your work for consideration. Not a PCNW Member yet? You can join online today!

PCNW’s Holiday Gift Guide

LOOKING FOR HOLIDAY GIFT IDEAS?

Give the gift of photography! Whether you’re looking to learn a new skill, add a print to your collection, or support the burgeoning photographer in your home we have something for everyone. Winter is a great time to dive into a creative practice and Photographic Center  Northwest (PCNW) offers many ways to learn and engage with photography, including through many online classes and workshops, so we hope you’ll make PCNW your resource this season.

GIVE THE GIFT OF ART!

To Survive on this Shore book cover. Cover photo by Jess T. Dugan


BOOKS

Shop the PCNW book store! Staff recommendations include To Survive on This Shore, by Jess T. Dugan & Vanessa Fabbre (PCNW’s upcoming winter exhibition), Natural Deceptions, by Natalie Krick, and A Brave New Normal – Photographic Zine

Detail of Henry Horenstein limited edition print



PRINTS

By shopping our selection of limited edition prints, you will be supporting both PCNW and the artist! Staff favorites include Erin Shafkind, King Kong Fancy Pants, 2008 and Richard Renaldi, Faith, Newark, New Jersey, 2001

GIVE A CUSTOM PRINT!

Photo by Sandy King

CUSTOM PRINTS FROM OUR PRINT SERVICE

Did you know that PCNW offers online printing services through our Digital Lab? This service allows users to e‐mail files directly to our Digital Lab to be printed by our staff.


**HOLIDAY SPECIAL!**

11×14 print size w/ matte board and sleeve
$25 each, shipping included
Submit files to printing@pcnw.org via WeTransfer

Deadline for holiday delivery:
Sunday, December 13th
*

*barring any unforeseen or COVID-19 related delays by shipping carriers

GIVE THE GIFT OF EXPERIENCE

Photo by Robert Wade

GIFT A MEMBERSHIP!

Members receive benefits including discounts on education offerings, facilities rentals and gallery purchases; opportunities for professional development and exhibition, and invitations to special member events.



**LIMITED TIME OFFER!**

20% discount on winter quarter class tuition for PCNW members. 

Ends November 30th!

GIFT CERTIFICATES!

Have a fellow photo-enthusiast in your life, or wondering what to tell others to get you? PCNW has gift certificates available!

September 2020 Member Showcase

It’s time for our September Member Showcase. This month, we are shining the light on Neil Berkowitz, a PCNW Member since 2014 who explores place identity through his images.

Neil Berkowitz – Member since 2014

What are you working on?

Although I continue to produce other new work, such as the individual pieces that I am submitting this month (all from this summer), I am currently pursuing two major projects. The one that I will mention now is “Neither Here nor There,” which continues a two year exploration of place identity. The single, large work (17″ x 137″) in my project is a continuous photographic print. It is composed of six side by side elements, each of which is composed of three or four photographic layers. that connects my home city with 13 other places in six countries. The fact that five of the component elements include layers involving museums is intended to suggest that art, too, offers pathways to peace. All components feature the same base layer, from Seattle, that serves as a lateral roadway between them. Should I be able to secure funding to do so, my ideal presentation of this work would be as a closed loop, 17″ high and 49″ in diameter, mounted on a column or pedestal.

Artist Statement

Much of my recent work reflects my interest in applying digital precision to the traditional technique of multiple exposure in an effort to produce work that builds upon the way that individuals process experience by connecting different moments and experiences into understanding, situating, and remembering their lives and surroundings.

I value multiple layered works for reasons beyond its connection to a traditional yet marginal technique and the similarity of the process to the way we grasp our experiences. There is a tremendous range of aesthetic possibility in the blending of layers, yielding transparency, texture, and color that would be unattainable in most single-layered work. Employing this process also inserts a particular intentionality into the photographer’s creative process that now enters earlier and in a less response-based way than is usual with photography.

It is the liberty of this process that makes viewers question whether the works are photography. For me, the answer is clearly, yes, they are. They are captured light and form. They begin with a camera and end with a digital darkroom process that utilizes digital equivalents of what I used to do in the darkroom–but with greater precision and power. And as with the powerful reportage photography that I grew up admiring, they ask us to observe and to make sense of what is around us with greater attentiveness.

To learn more about Neil’s  photography, click here

We send a big thank you to Neil for submitting his work this month! If you’re a member of PCNW and would like to share your creative endeavors, we’d love to hear from you. Complete our online form by the 15th of every month and a jury will review your work for consideration. Not a PCNW Member yet? You can join online today!