gallery-16-9-jeffrey-martz-Willamette-Valley

Jeffrey Martz: Faster but Slower

February 17 – March 30, 2018

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 17, 2018, from 7–9PM

 

“I want you to play that again, only this time make it faster, but slower.”
– Martin Hannett, to the members of Joy Division, during the recording of Unknown Pleasures, 1977

In the spring of 2017, I sat in the passenger seat of my father-in-law’s car, camera in hand, watching Willamette Valley riverscapes scroll past my window. As the light was storm-perfect, my impulse was to ask for photography pull-overs. There were so many fine subjects that I mentally had our touring company stopping every mile or so. This seemed an obnoxious request, so I didn’t speak up. Frustrated, I set my Fuji X100-F camera to a 1/1000th of a second shutter speed, thinking that this would eradicate any car movement from the world around me. I didn’t take a single exposure. This was just silly. How was I supposed to compose or know my subjects at 45 miles per hour?

Impish?

Inspired?

In a moment of grace, I thought, or rather just felt, why not set the shutter slow and work with the movement? That seemed an honest response to a fast landscape. A car-window world of unfolding flower fields, barns, branches, and blurs. This would be my subject, and I took around 200 pictures that afternoon.

For several weeks I didn’t look at the work; I was afraid of failure. When I found my courage, and when I saw that first post-impressionist smear of green, yellow, and orange, I began laughing. This is why I am a photographer: experimentation, beauty, surprise, & joy.
– Jeffrey Martz
 
RSVP catering will be serving light appetizers and wine.
On view through March 30.
 

Don’t miss our Artist’s Dinner with Photographer Jeffrey Martz on Saturday, March 10, 2018, at 7PM. Space is limited.

Past Exhibitions