Artist Statement
Photography has been a vehicle for observing the world around me and documenting the environment that many of us ignore on a daily basis. The interplay of light, shape, and texture often transforms a somewhat mundane object or scene into a dynamic and interesting canvas that elicits an entirely new perception of the way one views the subject being photographed.
I have been working in the medium of photography for the past 46 years and owned and operated my own studio for over 30 years. I have used primarily medium and large format cameras to create my images and I utilize both black & white and color materials to produce the final photograph. In addition , I also hand color selected black & white photographs. I process all of my own black & white and color film and print all of my own black & white and color prints. Over the past fifteen years, I have switched the majority of my color work and a good portion of my black and white work from film to the digital format and process and print all of my own work in this medium as well. As you can see, I am a firm believer that ones own work in photography should be done by the person who created the image. The print sizes for my fine art work run from 16in. x 16in. on up to and including 20in. x 30in. I limit each image that I have created to an edition of only 25, after which the negative or image file is retired. The primary content of my photographs range from still lifes to landscapes to architecture. The majority of my work has been done in black & white silver prints and the remaining has been in color chromogenic prints, color reversal prints and archival giclee prints. However, the majority of my work in both black and white and color for the past 15 years has been primarily archival digital prints.Over the past 41 years I have exhibited my work in state museums and private galleries around the country. . In addition, I have had my work purchased and placed in numerous corporate and private collections throughout this country and abroad. I have taught photography at the College of New Jersey from 1990 to 2003 and at The Lawrenceville School from 1999 to 2018.
I also conducted photography workshops for 12 years in conjunction with Young Audiences of New Jersey.
William Vandever