Talking with David Burnett from Sochi

Holiday Print Sale 2015

Update: This year's sale is now over. Many thanks to all of you who supported and purchased prints this year. It is a true blessing to have fans like you.

 

Photographs are best experienced on a piece of paper. Something we tend to lose sight of in this digital age. It’s not the most convenient way to look at an image, nor the least expensive, just the best. When done right by the artist, the printed image is presented as the photographer intended. Photographic prints are artifacts, objects d’ art, that enrich a person’s life. That’s how I see them. I like to touch them, hold them, frame them and hang them on a wall. Live with them.

 

For this year’s holiday print sale I’ve searched my archives and paired photographs which I feel work well together as a diptych. Ideally, this means the viewers eye enjoys each print separately, while the viewers mind unlocks a deeper understanding of what the two images are saying together.

 

That’s the idea anyway.

 

Once again this year the prints are half price. I’m also offering a choice in size.

 

The small pigment prints are made on 8.5 x 11 inch archival matte paper with an image size of 6 x 9 inches.

 

The big pigment prints are made on 17 x 22 inch archival matte paper with an image size of 12 x 18 inches.

 

Each diptych consists of two separate photographic prints made on two separate pieces of paper.

 

All prints are made personally by me.

 

All prints are signed on the front and signed and dated on the back. Each diptych will come with a certificate of authenticity as well.

 

The sale ends on November 18, 2015. Prints will be shipped in the US (sorry, no international orders this year) via priority mail by December 2, 2015.

 

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JAR15_1110_prints_02Diptych #1 - Hidden Eyes, Casablanca, Morocco 2005

 

While making selections for this year’s sale, I kept finding images from my work in Morocco where the subject’s eyes were hidden or obscured. I’m not quite sure what that means and I think that’s okay. Photographs should be a bit of a mystery, even to the person who made them. I feel these are two of the strongest images and they work well together. 

 

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Diptych #2 - Noria Leap, Hama, Syria 2006 and Camel Man, Cairo, Egypt 2006

 

The people of both Egypt and Syria are dear to my heart. I’ve experienced nothing but kindness and generosity in both of these places. Like most of my work, this is simple street photography, which I define as walking around, perhaps getting lost, and trying to capture images which are pleasing to the eye, while also attempting to distill some order out of life’s chaos. Some much has changed since these images were made. The images now have a metaphoric meaning which transcends the everyday life they depict.

  

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 Diptych #3 - Egyptian Artifacts, Egypt 2006

 

I’m fascinated with the pyramids (I suppose like everyone else). I never tire of making pictures of them. I’m also fascinated by the fact that they’re just kind of there, standing fast, more or less unchanged, as human life goes on around them. Many photographers try to photograph them as if they just stumbled across them, Indiana Jones style. I like the idea of showing them surrounded by modern day (future) artifacts. Like these things will come and go, maybe be unearthed themselves one day, while the pyramids just sit there, err Sphinx like, passing the time.

 

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 Diptych #4 - American Icons, New Jersey 2001 and Nevada 1996

 

I thought I was being clever, shooting a picture of Lady Liberty from the New Jersey side. I swear I hadn’t seen the opening title sequence from The Sopranos when I made this. Oh well… great minds. The Golden Arches rising out of the Nevada High Country, I’m pretty sure I got to this one first. Both of these images were made on film and drum scanned, which is my way of saying the prints are amazing.

Many thanks and have a wonderful holiday.

 

- Kenneth Jarecke

 

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