Photography exhibit is emotionally moving

Photography exhibit is emotionally moving David Speltz's expansive and majestic photographs of England's Lake District were taken in 2009, 10 maybe 15 years after the Kodak firm ceased manufacturing Kodachrome-25, and just before the last development facility closed its doors. In November, Speltz is off to Papua, New Guinea, "for the solar eclipse. In spite of the subject, he's looking for that certain something — that kernel of "something" that becomes so far more in the eyes and minds of a viewer, "to get a photo that pulls interest over time. Among his favorite is "Descending from the Old Man of Coniston. He's working on another exhibit with Samson and Randall, featuring New Hampshire Urban Landscape, planned for two years down the line. Speltz did not manipulate the image, he notes. "It's easier to do land when the sun is out," he says. Institute of Art in Manchester, along with the work of Peter Randall, of Eliot, Maine, and Gary Samson, of Concord. But looking at the pastoral image it's easy to see why anyone would be taken with it. The piece is shot with a Hasselblad Xpan panoramic film camera, itself no longer produced, as are all three artists' works in the exhibit. It's so emotionally moving. Speltz's passion began at age 12, "when I took my first picture ever of my sister using a Kodak Star Flash camera. Landscapes, like shots of people, also vary widely, ranging from the "pretty picture" on an office wall to something more complicated and complex "that makes you think about it," he says. Speltz has numerous projects in both areas in the works. It first occurred with "Don't Look Back," a street series shot in the Roxbury/Dorchester, Mass. The photos have "merit to the content, not just matter, but the look," Speltz notes. "There was clearly some value. "(They) run left to right. That's a long time ago. "Old Man" is taken descending the mountain into a valley of pastures encircled by low, green mountains. Those are the ones that fought integration. Photographs are not "real things," says Speltz. It's a body of work that is unto itself, and probably not meant to represent the thing you're photographing, at least for me. Since the '70s Speltz's street/documentary photography has moved on to Peru and Indochina, even Kansas to capture the blues. In the black and white "Don't Look Back," there's a young toy-gun-toting girl, and a shot of a newlywed couple, so simple but telling in stance, expression and setting. In a shot within an office where he once worked, a woman coiffed in a classic beehive, cigarette in hand, confers with a man in a room set with desks and electric typewriters — a less romanticized "Mad Men. "One I love would mean nothing to others. That assertion was confirmed at the time, and recently at a photography festival in Texas where he received a number of invitations for future exhibitions. Those original works "are like what people do with an iPhone," he says. It was like that for me in th '50s. It was during college he recognized his work had taken a turn. Knowing this was the last hurrah, Speltz was disappointed to find the British district under clouds. But for fine art photographers, it's something that is new; it's not meant to be a duplicate. Photography exhibit is emotionally moving Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 03/04/2012