Houston, TX - Stephen Strom will be visiting the Houston Center for Photography on Thursday, March 18to present a lecture (Photographing Secrets from the Center of the World) and to sign copies of his newly published book, Earth Forms (Dewi Lewis Publishing; http://www.earthforms.info/).
Strom has spent his professional career as an astronomer. Mentored initially by Todd Walker and Harold Jones at the University of Arizona, Strom began photographing in 1978. His work, largely interpretations of landscapes, has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and is held in several permanent collections. His photographs complement poems and essays in three books published by the University of Arizona Press: Secrets from the Center of the World, a collaboration with Muscogee poet Joy Harjo, Sonoita Plain: Views from a Southwester Grassland, a collaboration with ecologists Jane and Carl Bock, and Tseyi (Deep in the Rock): Reflections on Canyon de Chelly, co-authored with Navajo poet Laura Tohe. Most recently, his work appeared in Otero Mesa: Preserving America’s Wildest Grassland (University of New Mexico Press).
Strom’s photographs attempt to capture what is nearly beyond the camera’s grasp: desert lands shaped by millennial forces and yesterday’s cloudburst into undulations of color and form - its history reimagined in light that at once penetrates and sculpts.
His photographs have been described by the poet Joy Harjo as “not separate from the land or larger than it. Rather, they gracefully and respectfully exist inside it. Breathe with it. The camera is used to see with a circular viewpoint which becomes apparent even though the borders of the images remain rectangular. The land in thesephotographs is a beautiful force, in the way the Navajo mean the word ‘beautiful’....that has to do with living well, dreaming well, in a way that is complementary to all life.”
The lecture will begin at xxx. Following this talk, Stephen will be available to sign books and to engage in further discussion regarding both his technical and aesthetic approach to capturing and interpreting landscape images. A selection of images drawn from Earth Forms will be available for purchase. [You might add a sentence here if you envision a reception with punch, goodies, etc.).
Additional background regarding Stephen Strom’s work can be found on his website http://www.stephenstrom.com/.
EXHIBITION RELATED PROGRAMMING
Anthony Goicolea’s Related, RE: groups - American Photographs Before 1950 from the collection of
W.M. Hunt, and Beatrix Reinhardt’s Members’ Only – America Exhibitions on view - March 12 - April 25, 2010
Opening Reception for all three exhibitions at HCP - Friday, March 12, 6 - 8 p.m.
Discussion on Collection Blind Pirate with W.M. Hunt, with collector & photography scholar Edward Osowski at HCP –
Friday, March 12, 6 p.m.
Artist Talk with Anthony Goicolea at HCP – Friday, March 12, 6:30 p.m.
Artist Talk with Beatrix Reinhardt at HCP – Saturday, March 13, 5 p.m.