Realizations: Photographs by Jeff McDonald
Anderson Arts Center, Kenosha (WI) February-March 2021 Solo Exhibition
This exhibit is drawn from two distinct bodies of my work:
Ten photographs are representative of much of my black and white landscape work. As explorations of the interplay between shadow and highlight, this work tends toward the dark side with lots of shadow detail together with areas of contrasting highlights. Realizing my vision for these images depends on getting a good base image in the field and then, heavily, on post-production processing in the digital darkroom. Sometimes I have a clear vision of a finished image while I am still in the field, but more often at that point I have a good general idea of the direction for an image. The image comes to life later when I can evaluate its potential and coax it into how best to represent my vision.
The eleven color photographs are drawn from my "Weekend in Chicago" project from 2019. I have great appreciation for but limited exposure to Chicago's architecture. These photographs are mainly of architectural details I found interesting during a very brief trip, along with some of the wonderful abstractions that you see on a sunny day when the light creates an interplay of reflection between big buildings in the city.
