Viewpoint Exhibit History

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.  ~Henry David Thoreau

In this series, Wendy Baker combines her passions for travel and architectural and portrait photography to create visual stories evoking a feeling of mystery.

Her dreamlike images always begin with a sense of place.  She then adds her photographs of models, clothing, and other elements.  She states, “I love to travel.  I’m captivated by the idea of magical journeys—whether to far-off lands or deep into the self.  My goal is to create a feeling of fantasy — transitioning from the known to the unknown by using beautiful light, muted colors, symbolic details and compositions with strong leading lines.“  She often adds touches of archival glitter to her printed pieces before framing.   

As the owner of a commercial photography business based in the Sacramento area, she is constantly developing new skills.  She loves everything about the creative process.  From getting up before dawn in a new city to capturing the perfect light, to sitting at her computer combining the elements she’s gathered into a unique visual story, one that she hopes will spark the viewer's imagination.

Please join us for a Viewpoint Fundraiser at the Luther Gerlach Artist Reception!

This dual-purpose event offers the opportunity for both our members and general public to enjoy a special artists’ reception and to get a preview of the new exhibits with photographers in attendance.

Guests will enjoy a selection of wines and craft beer, light appetizers and an array of desserts.

$15 per person (18 and under free). Purchase tickets HERE

Viewpoint is privileged to present internationally renowned photographer Luther Gerlach and his mammoth wet-plate collodion photography. The past meets the present in this intriguing photographic process created with wet chemicals, glass and tin plates. Luther Gerlach is one of the photographers responsible for the resurgence of this method in contemporary art. He demonstrates these processes for the J.Paul Getty Center. He travels the world in a converted darkroom bus for mammoth plates and created the only existing see-through, functional camera and darkroom chamber where small plates are shot and processed before your eyes.

Stephen Fischer is an outdoor photographer specializing in landscape and wildlife imagery, covering many areas of the American West.  To capture more unique results, he enjoys the challenge of exploring out-of-the-way or less convenient locations, and at all times of the year.   Based out of Sacramento California, some of his work has centered around the natural habitat of the area, while also trying to give others a better appreciation of its beauty.

Savannahs of predominately blue oaks dispersed over bucolic grasslands on gently rolling hills, these lands reflect the state of the California foothills closer to its native form. Providing a quiet solitude and an oasis for wildlife, while isolated from the hustle and bustle of encroaching suburban sprawl, the oak savannahs in California are disappearing at an increasing rate.

Stephen Fischer's exhibit of black-and-white photographs provides a documentation of these lands south of 50 in their undisturbed form as captured ahead of their destruction over the past decade.

Born in Iran in 1966 Cyrus Javid lived there until he was 25. He migrated to the United States in 1991 and became a US citizen in 1999.

Mostly a self-taught photographer, Cyrus strives to be better with every photograph.  Line, color, shape, form, texture, balance, movement, pattern, and proportion are integral parts of his images. Through their use, he hopes to create images that are unique, and to offer his viewers a new perspective. Javid loves color images but dreams in black and white.

The images in this exhibition were made a few years ago. Javid’s adventure took him to Casablanca; Rabat, with its green hills by the Atlantic ocean; Fes, with its ancient winding medina; Ouarzazate, the gateway to the Sahara Desert, with its shifting colored sands; the rugged twisted roads of the Atlas Mountains; and finally, the amazing Marrakech, where spice and argon oil souks and snake charmers fill the long winding alleys of Jamaa-el-fna.

Born in 1957, in Vilafranca del Penedès (Barcelona), Spain, Pep Ventosa has been fascinated with photography from his first camera gift at the age of 10.

Ventosa states, "I use photographs as raw material, like paint, to create new imagery. I like to explore the space between painting and photography. I believe photography is not only a tool to document things but also one that’s part of the rich history of picture making. I’m particularly interested in representing familiar subjects in ways perhaps not seen before."

"We are surrounded by trees, yet we often walk by them without a thought. In this series, I walk in a circle around a tree, shooting it repeatedly along my path, then overlay and refine the shots to discover what became of the the orbit, the tree and its environment in the round. I like the idea of rendering what is sometimes a complex environment into an abstract backdrop, leaving the tree with the leading role."

Balance is the theme of the 2017 Twelve exhibit, Viewpoint Gallery’s annual December juried show. In life, balance is the oft sought equilibrium of daily activities from menu planning, exercise, speaker output, tire maintenance, and checkbooks. It is the obviously necessary skill of the tight rope walker, bicyclist, ballet dancer and bowler at the line. As a principle of art and design, balance describes compositional arrangement such as symmetrical, asymmetrical or radial, but in broader understanding, artistic balance indicates the totality of elements working together for meaning and visual impact. Balance itself can be symbolized simply by the placement of the horizon line or by the dramatic tilt of mast and sail against the wind. Balance is in the internal tug of subjects vying for attention within the frame or the quiet push of opposing space or textures. Within the craft of photography balance is tonal range, contrast, and color corrected to match expectation. Yet while balance comforts in its seeming correctness and familiarity, perhaps art is most interesting just at the edge of being out of whack. The principle of balance is open for your photographic interpretation. Any subject and photographic approach is invited for this juried exhibit.

In the world of pristine photographic prints, some people might consider it a heresy to print images on fabric and then sew on top of the image with thread.  Kerby Smith finds it quite liberating. He has been photographing for over 50 years, and has exhibited in a wide range of venues. For most of that time he printed on paper, matted and framed his photographs under glass. But, he was never comfortable seeing the image behind glass. He prefers the up close and personal relationship the viewer gets with the image when there is no glass barrier between them.

Before archival ink jet printers, Smith experimented with printing black and white photographs on canvas with a silver coating. He developed the canvas using garbage cans of developer, stop bath and fixer. He washed the printed canvas with a garden hose running into a plastic barrel. Then he would stretch the canvas for gallery presentation.

Today, in creating his digital images, he begins with a photographic capture which provides a first look at the scene. Then in his digital darkroom, he explores the possibilities of where the image can take himself and the viewer.  Smith says “I want to take the imagery to a place where it will put a smile on the viewer’s face when he or she interacts with it.  I often move a few degrees off reality to create the view I imagine. Sometimes, it is with an extended palette or color range, other times it is simply a change of viewpoint or scale”.

The Family of Mannequin is a group exhibit by members of “F/8”. These are some of our photographs of mannequins that are current or past residents of Continental Display, a business in Sacramento that sells used furnishings and paraphernalia from department stores and clothing shops that have either closed or replaced their old fixtures. Continental Display has mannequins—lots and lots of mannequins—retired now after years of service, or biding their time between jobs. The mannequins are waiting quietly (at least during the times we have seen them) for repairs and perhaps new homes. However, Continental Display will itself be closing this year, so the fate of the remaining mannequins is at best uncertain. Sadly, the demand for mannequins like these has diminished greatly in recent years.

F/8 is a group of photographers from Davis, Woodland, and Sacramento, formed in 2011. We spend a few quality hours together each month sharing our printed images and critiquing each other’s work, encouraging each other to be better photographers. We are also all members of the Viewpoint Photographic Art Center. The group and its members have participated in many  group, solo, and juried photography exhibits and publications locally, nationally, and overseas.

Current and past F/8 members represented in The Family of Mannequin are: Joseph Finkleman, Rob Floerke, Richard Halliburton, Dennis McCoy, Tim Messick, Anne Miller, Michael Radin, David Robertson, and Rick York.

Mother Earth is a photographic exploration of the natural world through a woman’s eyes. This exhibit is Charlotte Gibb’s latest collection of photographs that celebrate the delicate and ephemeral nature of Mother Earth — her rages, her quiet contemplation, her dignified poses.

Inspired by the constant change of nature, these images depict heartbreakingly beautiful moments, both fleeting and powerful—giant pines weathering a raging snow storm which momentarily reveals a massive wall of granite; ghostly white Aspen trees in the final throes of Autumn; reflections in still water that play tricks on the mind.

Charlotte writes, “This body of work is meant to convey my deep emotional connection to Mother Nature, and to invite the viewer to listen in on my intimate, woman-to-woman, visual conversation with her.”

Born in Chongqing, China, Jing Zhou is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and Associate Professor in New Jersey, USA. Her award winning work, from digital print to animation, from visual design to interactive project, has been widely shown and collected internationally.

As a Chinese woman artist living in the Western world, Jing Zhou is aware of art, literature, philosophy, and mythology from both cultures. Her understanding of Chinese philosophies has shaped her thinking and conduct. The prudent and contrary-minded Taoist beliefs, the attached-to-the-earth reality of Confucianism, and the sudden enlightenment and intuitive insights of Zen are the foundation of her life. On the other hand, Western culture has inspired her and opened new ways of thinking.
Developing a personal visual language that expresses universal ideas, she creates artworks for the stories and aesthetics of each image, and for making visible those concepts which reflect her personal experiences. She wants her viewers to look at her images through magical windows into deep secondary spaces.

She describes her work as “Inspired by nature and multiple cultures, my artwork explores our common humanity, diverse society, and my inner voyage. Creating artwork required me to realize my nature, re-study my culture, and adapt new thinking, which resulted in a new perspective on life. It has also challenged me to constantly solve visual problems, learn new techniques, and explore the splendid human heritage. My images form a visual communication that interacts in several collective dialogues. These dialogues are between eternity and transience, oneness and variety, existence and emptiness”.

The annual Viewpoint Members’ Exhibit, a long-time tradition at Viewpoint, is always exciting for the quality and range of photographic art it showcases. Because it gives all Viewpoint members an opportunity to showcase one image of their choosing, the exhibit highlights the diversity of techniques, approaches, and personal visions in our photographic community.

Over the years, the Members’ Exhibit has reflected the general shift from traditional to digital techniques, but Viewpoint members continue to explore methods such as traditional black-and-white darkroom printing, alternative processes such as platinum/palladium and van dyke printing, hand coloring, digital compositing, and hybrid traditional/digital processes as methods for their creative expression through photography. The overall quality of the work makes the Members’ Exhibit an inspiration for photographers and a testament to the vitality of Viewpoint Photographic Art Center.

Jerry Berry’s inspiration for these images comes from his interest in Zen, Asian culture, and painting.  Koi have been an inspiration for artists for millennia; especially in the Asian traditions. The beauty of color, form, and movement of these fish bring much joy to the viewer. Berry’s interpretations of Koi have been developed based on his growth as a photographer and artist.  He says that “as photographers we are taught that our camera is the perfect tool to capture the ‘defining moment’ and is unequaled at reproducing finely focused images of sharpness and detail. We subsequently strive to perfect our craft with this in mind.” 

He feels that the story of time and motion could be lost if the photographer freezes an image defining that moment. The spontaneity of movement and life can be lost when it is defined as an instant of time by the fast shutter speed of a camera. By allowing his camera to capture a longer portion of time/life and letting the koi become his brush stroking the canvas of his camera sensor; he blends the strengths of photographic art with those of a painter. Alan Watts in The Way of Zen, best describes Berry’s approach to his subjects as he describes Zen in the following passage: “…for Zen there is no duality, no conflict between the natural element of chance and the human element of control.”