My early years were documented with a Vivitar 110, a modest camera with built-in flash and stylish wrist-strap. Later, my dad gave me his father’s Nikon S-2, a 35mm rangefinder introduced in 1954 with a 50mm f/1.4 lens. With it, I calculated proper exposure without the aid of a light meter and did experiments with depth of field. 50mm lenses are great for portraits, and I found myself getting closer and closer to the subjects of my photographs. I’ve used a Kiev-made rangefinder in recent years for similar purposes.
Lately—well, for perhaps the past 7-8 years—I’ve been shooting with a twin lens reflex (TLR) camera made by Seagull. I take it with me nearly everywhere.
I use photography to document my life. As a result, the subject matter varies widely: from toddlers and grandparents to interiors and botanicals. I take advantage of available light in order to depict these subjects as I’ve found them, and aim to represent a moment, event, or place through multiple details (not unlike the Cubist’s notion of depicting multiple viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context).
The seventeen images in this sequence were selected from projects completed over the past four years. Here, each is stripped of it’s original narrative and stands alone—as photograph with illustration and/or hand-drawn type.
Images were selected from: (Top row, from left) The Mallards of Gill Bridge, Cord, Fly Fishing, Montpelier, Sequoia National Park; (2nd row, from left) NYC/Hoover Wilderness, Birdfinger, NYC/Hoover Wilderness, NYC/Hoover Wilderness, Huntington Gardens (and Strybing Arboretum); (3rd row, from left) Huntington Gardens (and Strybing Arboretum), The Mallards of Gill Bridge, September 17th, Cannon Beach, Cord; (4th row, from left) Montpelier, and Yosemite.
Montpelier features photographs from the summer of 2006 in six parts: Hubbard Park, Capitol Plaza Hotel, Royal Orchid Thai, American Flatbread, Vermont College, and Fourth of July Parade. The series is overlayed with fragments of a hand-drawn map of Vermont copied from the 1930 edition of the Commercial Atlas of the World.
Tags: American Flatbread, Capitol Plaza Hotel, Fourth of July Parade, Hubbard Park, Montpelier, Royal Orchid Thai, Vermont, Vermont College
‘Untitled’ from the personal series ‘Yosemite‘, was selected to appear in American Illustration 27. From 7,500 pictures entered by over 1,200 illustrators, magazines, agencies and publishers, the jury selected only 386 images to appear in the book and represent the best pictures of 2007. AI27 will be printed in full color and distributed world-wide in hard-cover this November.
Tags: AI27, American Illustration
Cord was written by Jennifer Tolo Pierce. Photographs were taken in and around Havre and Helena, Montana.
Down the Long Road Comes was written by Jennifer Tolo Pierce. Photographs were taken in the Emigrant Wilderness.
