Press Release

5151 Pacific Ave. Stockton, CA 95207

Media Advisory For More Information Contact: Jan Marlese L.H. Horton Jr. Gallery Director (209) 954-5507 jmarlese@deltacollege.edu

                    Delta College Center for the Arts & L.H. Horton Jr. Gallery Presents  
                                       Documentary Photography
                                     November 20 - December 12
                                    
                                    Artist Talk with Photographer Kurt Fishback
                                Portraits of Artists in Their Personal Space
                          November 19, 12:30 p.m. - Tillie Lewis Theater
                                                          Free to the Public

Exhibition juror Mark Leong, a prominent, international photographer. Originally from California, Mark Leong first traveled to in China in 1989 and has been photographing in Asia ever since. A contributing photographer for National Geographic, his pictures have also appeared in Time, Fortune, New Yorker, Businessweek, The New York Times Magazine, Fast Company, GQ, Stern and Smithsonian. A book of his black and white images, China Obscura, was published by Chronicle Books in 2004. His work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Foundation, the Fifty Crows International Fund for Documentary Photography, and the Overseas Press Club.  In 2010, he was named Veolia Environment Wildlife Photojournalist of the Year for his coverage of the Asian wildlife trade.

Juror's Statement
As a fellow photographer, it is impossible to look at this collection of others’ pictures without considering how I might have approached these same situations: choices of light, angles and mood, what to emphasize, what to leave out. It is impossible not to think, “that is exactly how I would want to shoot it” or conversely, “wow, I would have never thought of doing it like that,” and taking equal pleasure (and sometimes envy) in recognition or discovery.

Most of the submissions to this exhibition came in series, and the selection reflects that. Although photographs such as Dan Meylor’s respectful, almost regal portrait of a homeless woman can easily stand on their own as individual slices of narrative, the idea of documentation often calls for a sense of continuity. So gravitating towards multiple-image projects also recognizes consistent strength over bodies of work. 

Niko J. Kallianiotis’s cinematic gaze moves restlessly through the Greek community in Astoria, New York. John Eaton shoots a century-old pumping station like a mighty industrial temple, then brings us right up against its slabs and struts.  Judi Iranyi’s portraits of her son Michael growing up become even more poignant upon the realization they were mostly made without knowing they would become the record of a boyhood cut short. These projects maintain the stillness of photography, but each in its own way makes us aware of dynamic space and passing time.

How much time did Johnny Milano have to hang around in motels with his neo-Nazis to observe scenes like the one in the parking lot with the African-American wedding party?  I do not know, but it feels substantial -- quietly present for the small moments in a dubious subculture. The everyday banality of keeping one’s swastika armband neatly pressed:  does this make a symbol of genocide seem more innocuous or more deeply unsettling? 

No such fly-on-the-wall strategy for PJ Couture, whose Subterraneans subway portraits, in the tradition of Bruce Gilden and Diane Arbus, abruptly force us into confrontation with his subjects. Even speaking to them before-hand, it takes some inner resilience to photograph strangers this way. Their harsh, silvery glares stick in my head more than any other pictures in this show.

A key goal of documentary photography is to make us see things differently than we expect them to be. While Milano’s pictures reveal the ordinary in the extreme, David Gardner’s New American Nomads series flips this notion to find wonder in the mundane.   Recreational vehicles easily glimpsed any day on any interstate – and even more easily forgotten -- become extraterrestrial landing craft roving the American landscape.   Move inside, and the tidy familiarity of a mobile home interior becomes a mirrored maze framing a disembodied hand and leg in the shower.  Pull back out, and we are alien settlers on the brink of starry, yawning space.  

In this show, there are many more photographs to see beyond those I mention here, and I hope you spend some time with all of them. Think of the stories they tell, and the stories you imagine when looking at them. 

- Mark Leong -
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The LH Horton Jr Gallery is located on the ground floor of Shima Center, and is wheelchair accessible. Admission is free and open to the public. Recommended parking is available in the Shima lot for a fee of $2. Tours are welcome, and Gallery Talks and special needs may be addressed by contacting the Gallery.

Visit the L.H. Horton Jr. Gallery at: http://gallery.deltacollege.