Fall

Book Description
The idea for Fall came to photographer Christopher Griffith while he was living in a Manhattan brownstone, finalizing the design for his first monograph, States (powerHouse Books, 2000). "It was mid-November," Griffith recalls, "and the ivy on the side of my building seemed to be literally glowing outside my window. I picked a single leaf off the vine and saw that, dependent upon the angle of light and the position of the leaf, I could see the most incredible texture and color through the leaf." Excited by this discovery, Griffith spent the next couple of days experimenting with how to capture it all onto film. That was four years ago. He has now perfected the technique of both photographing the foliage and getting them to his studio and on film before they wilt or turn brown, quite a feat as many of these fresh and delicate leaves were collected and transported personally by Griffith from hundreds of miles away. A hyper-macroscopic analysis of the color transformations characteristic of tree foliage in the Northeastern United States autumn, Fall features vivid and brilliant images of nature's gifts, which we often take for granted. Fantastically backlit, glowing colors are transmitted through the leaves, illustrating structural and textural elements of nature never before captured on film. For this former student of research biology, the project transported Griffith back to his early days of plant biochemistry, but this time as an artist, not a scientist. "When you look at a tree that is turning, it appears to have an overall uniformity of color," Griffith observes. "But it is only when you literally get into the tree and get personal with the individual components of that breathtaking color, that you see the truly astounding variety of that color transformation. For me, leaves are like snowflakes; no two are ever the same." Exhibition at The powerHouse Gallery, 68 Charlton Street, New York, October 21-November 20, 2004.


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For those who think of photography as the perfect medium for capturing surface textures but a poor one for exploring the spiritual, this first-ever monograph of the work of British artist Bucklow will come as a surprise and a delight. Using one of the earliest photographic methods-a handmade "pinhole" camera without a lens-Bucklow channels the most fundamental aspect of photography, the sun's disc projected through an improvised camera. Some of the most beautiful and luminous works Bucklow has created are found in his "Guests" and "Tetrarchs" series, silhouettes made up of thousands of tiny pinhole images of light. The models posing for these works are Bucklow's friends; by photographing them, he finds a way to explore his inner life, viewing his friends as mirrors of his own interior. The photographs are beautifully reproduced in this book, which also includes examples of Bucklow's video work, drawings, and paintings. Essays by curator Maria Morris Hambourg and art historian David Allan Mellor nicely complement the images. For libraries collecting contemporary art and photography.-Michael Dashkin, Qualcomm, San Diego Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.


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