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Europe Straight Up – Solo show at Dacia Gallery

Please join me for the the opening reception of Europe Straight Up, this week, April 18th, 6-9pm at Dacia Gallery at 53 Stanton St. This is my first showing of this new work created last fall in Europe for my continuing series of Straight Up images. Images below will be on display through May 10th.

Information from the gallery can be found at:http://daciagallery.com/exhibitions/europe-straight-up-2.php

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Woody van Amen in Rotterdam

I had an exclusive invitation from The Contemporaries to visit the reopening of the Toshiko Mori designed, 22,000 square foot, Sean Kelly Gallery last night to sip in the work of Antony Gormley. The show titled “Bodyspace” is a visual treat of abstract humility portrayed through geometric human forms balancing the relationship between man and architecture. Confirming with director Maureen Bray that Antony Gormley had permanent installations in Rotterdam, I was convinced the image above was one of his. Due diligence this morning proved me wrong.

The sculpture shown above is the work of Woody Van Amen who predates Gormley by fourteen years. This piece titled “Taxat” has a completely different expression created by the structure in the 90 degree welded stainless steel. The Taxat is a form created by Woody van Amen that expresses relationships in east Asian symbols. From the Straight Up perspective Woody van Amen’s work takes on another equally exciting feel. More of van Amen’s work can be seen at this link.

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Dialogue in Prague

Prague, Czech Republic Straight Up
Prague, Czech Republic photographed Straight Up by Cameron R Neilson.

It’s pretty spectacular to see a couple of mostly nude sculptures chatting it up on the facade of a building in Prague. It’s even better when there is an owl between them. The effects of foreshortening on the human (where things closer to the camera look bigger) is not too distracting on the sculptures.

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Contact Sheet #1 from Florence. Italy

Florence, Italy, Straight Up
Contact Sheet #1 of Florence, Italy. Photographed Straight Up by Cameron R Neilson

From an overview (from an airplane, satellite image, etc.), it’s easy to see patterns, isolate areas, and generate broad encompassing ideas on most anything. Straight Up photography takes a different approach, assimilating patterns from the ground up, one image at a time. Having the advantage of seeing all my images from a single city at once reminds me of making contact sheets in the darkroom (see description below). It’s in viewing these contact sheets where the magic of this project comes alive. Here is a selection of eight images from Florence, Italy.

Contact Sheet: A traditional contact sheet is made by sandwiching processed film (negatives) on top of photographic paper with glass on top in a darkroom. This combination is exposed to light and processed. The glass holds the negatives flat and therefore in “contact” with the photographic paper. The resulting image is a 1:1 reproduction of the film as a positive print. Contact sheets make selecting the best images easy since all can be seen at once. Additionally, image sequences can be seen and methodology of the photographer deduced. The term is still used today in the digital world, but often photographers delete or edit images from the contact sheet and only show select images–it’s part of the technological evolution of the process, and one I find sad. Seeing a contact sheet from a photographer is like looking at the long-hand, written-out, proof of a calculus problem: did the photographer wait the for the light, subject, chase it, get the image in one photo, or twenty photos).

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Tattered in Budapest

Tattered in Budapest, Hungary
Tattered building across from a clean facade in Hungary, Budapest. Photographed Straight Up by Cameron R Neilson

A simple hanging electric streetlamp connects these two beautiful buildings in Budapest. Though the structure on the right is under immense disrepair, it still holds a sense of life as seen in the foliage hanging from the few window-mounted flower pots.