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A Visual Journey
(A partial article taken from Decor and Syle Magazine, May 2001)
It speaks well for the broad public interest in photography that it is
the subject of so many sophisticated publications, exhibitions and private
collections. In San Diego, photography enthusiasts have the opportunity
to indulge their eye on a regular basis, with its own major museum, excellent
galleries, and ongoing lectures and workshops all devoted to the medium.
In May, Art Expressions Gallery opens an exhibition of Imogen Cunningham's
photography, "A Visual Journey - Black and White Photography, 1906-2001."
While the exhibition centers primarily on her work, it also includes two
contemporary photographers - Philipp Scholz Ritterman and Monte Nagler
- who expand upon her photographic vision.The exhibition coincides with
the release of a handsome new publication on Cunningham, both celebrating
her contributions to the twentieth centiry photography ("Imogen Cunningham:
Life and Work, 1883-1976," Richard Lorenz, Ed. Manfred Heiting, published
by Taschen, 2001)...
...One of Ansel Adams' many students and ardent followers, photographer
Monte Nagler closes this brief survey of black-and-white photography.
Having trained as an engineer and started a promising career in the Detroit
auto industry, Nagler dramatically shifted his course after attending
on of Adams' Yosemite workshops in 1979. Since that time he as worked
as a landscape photographer, teaching other students the intricacies of
Ansel Adams' zone system and lecturing on the history of photography.
He now leads his own photographic workshops, traveling every summer with
his class to a different place - Spain, England, Australia, New Zealand,
Asia are some of the areas he has explored with his students. And he continues
to return every year to California with his 4 x 5 view camera, to photograph
the coastal region that he first tacked under Adams' guidance. The exhibition
will feature many of his landscapes as well as his most recent work.
Separated geographically and chronologically, these three photographs
have not influenced each other directly. In fact, it is precisely the
distance from one another historically that makes their shared approach
to photography all the more remarkable. The precision and dramatic clarity
that Ritterman and Nagler bring to their individual interpretations of
the natural world resonate with Cunningham's own monumental images. Evidently,
the common language of pure photography articulated by Cunningham and
her contemporaries during the early decades of the 20th century is still
heard loud and clear.
-- Written by Diana Gaston
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