Poignant Pics no. 54: On Luther Gerlach’s “Last Snow #1”
Welcome to no. 54 in our series Poignant Pics where our editor, Diana Nicholette Jeon, writes about Luther Gerlach’s mage, Last Snow #1”
"Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder–no matter how old you became and how much you'd seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered." — Candace Bushnell
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Tis the Season…
You know, the one where a few flurries of snow or the first significant snowfall still holds its charm. Where the snow looks nice with the Christmas decorations around town and hasn't turned brown or grey yet. The one where it is romantic to take a walk with someone special during a flurry. The season when you can wistfully recall your childhood days of snowball fights and "snow days" with school canceled. Immediately after seeing this tintype image, Last Snow #1, I wrote to Luther and asked to feature it, even though I hate cold temperatures, snow, and winter weather. (I am aptly placed living here in Hawai'i.) But the image is beautiful. Some of you probably remember that a few weeks back, I wrote that I wasn't easily wowed by pictures of trees…and so now you may be saying to yourself, "Why is she showing me this then?" And that is true. I am not generally a huge fan of work that is simply beautiful for the sake of being beautiful; it usually takes something more for me. But even I have exceptions to my own rules. (I mean, who doesn't, right?)
So what made me choose it? More than just its seasonality, more than just its beauty. Gerlach's technique is masterful. Over his 30+ year career, he has studied with a host of photographic luminaries and apprenticed for several years in CA and HI with Brett Weston. Though Gerlach is incredibly proficient in a wide variety of historical processes, his technique of choice is outdoor, wet collodion positives, ambrotypes, and tintypes. He is one of the few hundred photographers worldwide consistently using this process and has produced thousands of these images over his career. Gerlach uses his collection of over 75 antique and handmade cameras outfitted with various antique lenses. (Lenses from different eras have different characteristic 'personalities' that affect the final image's look.) One of the mammoth cameras Gerlach built is named "The Griffness"; it measures 24x36 inches. Picture yourself lugging that around. I shoot by my personal choice with a variety of phone models…a camera that large is mind-boggling for me.
In researching Gerlach and his work, I found an apt quote he gave to LA Weekly's Shana Nys Danbrot. "Beauty has become such an unfashionable word in art, so I hesitate to say this, but really there is no other answer: I'm looking for beauty, I want to participate in beauty, I want to share it with the world. It's not necessarily a romantic beauty that I'm looking for — it's about feeling an emotional connection with forces that are greater than us like nature or time, even destruction."
Andy Goldsworthy said, "Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood." Gerlach's image does that for me. I haven't felt this way since 2004 when I saw Ann Hamilton's "At Hand" with its falling paper piled like leaves on the ground on view at the Smithsonian. But Gerlach's image makes me - a winter hater! - feel like jumping onto the ground and making snow angels.
Thank you, Luther, for allowing me to feel via your imagery. It's beautiful.
Last Snow #1
Artist Bio
Luther Gerlach has been working in historical photographic processes for the past 40 years, highlighting the role of constraints in creative production and the hand-made, tactile connection between the artist and his work. Known for nude portraits and urban scenes of downtown LA in his early career, more recently Gerlach has pioneered the re-emergence of plein air wet plate collodion landscapes. His work distills detailed images of the natural world, particularly trees, seaweeds, and grasses, to emphasize pure light and line, endowing his images with a subtly abstract quality.
Gerlach apprenticed with Brett Weston in Carmel and Hawaii in the 1980’s, before learning the wet plate process which he still works in today. He led lectures and demonstrations at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles for nearly twenty years. He has exhibited at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Ventura Museum of Art, the Schaknow Museum of Fine Art, Miami, the Denver Art Museum, and The Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe. Selected permanent collections include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Michael G. Wilson Centre for Photography, among others.
The artist lives and works in historic Hampton, Connecticut where he offers workshops, master printing services, and darkroom rentals from his English style barn, Little River Studio.
Author Bio
Diana Nicholette Jeon is an award-winning artist based in Honolulu, HI, who works primarily with lens-based media. Her work has been seen both internationally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Jeon holds an MFA from UMBC.