The Campus Chronicle

Volume 3, No. 5
December 6, 2002

Travis Dodd’s "Waiting for the 89 12:04 a.m." is on display as part of "Silverworks 2002" at Bergen Hall through Jan. 13.

Shows show off photography talents

A Review
By Hannah Pittard

The Savannah College of Art and Design’s photography department is well represented this winter with two distinct exhibitions: "Silverworks 2002" at Bergen Hall and "On the Road" at La Galerie Bleue. While both exhibitions demonstrate the high quality of work coming out of the photography program, they do so in very different ways.

The photographs of "Silverworks 2002" range from digital to silver gelatin prints, Piezography to Mordançage, and Polaroid emulsion to platinum/palladium prints.

Accounting for the wide range in style and technique in this exhibition is the manner in which the photographs are chosen. Each year, a society of photography majors known as PhotoGroup organizes, produces and edits "Silverworks," an annual magazine-format portfolio of student work.

Among the featured photographs is alumnus Travis Dodd’s "Waiting for the 89 12:04 a.m.," which is part of a larger body of work photographed exclusively at Savannah’s Amtrak station. "The image depicts the state of mind after the feelings of anxiousness and anxiety have passed," said Dodd, the assistant operations manager for the photography department. "After those feelings have passed a person becomes calm, the mind slows, eyes stare off into space."

The calm captured in Dodd’s photograph is indicative of an audience member’s reaction to the "Silverworks 2002" collection as a whole. Though the 35 images that come together to create this year’s "Silverworks" are incredibly distinct, they leave the viewer with a sense of calm. Whether you’re looking at the photograph of a posed girl in the blue glow of a spotlight or the bare midriff of a pregnant belly, you are overtaken by a sense of completion, composure and talent.

Complementing the abundant photographic work represented in "Silverworks 2002" is La Galerie Bleue’s "On the Road," which features the photojournalism of Aaron Bible, a first-year graduate student, alumnus Russ Bryant, a local photographer specializing in military images, and Vance Jacobs, an award-winning alumnus.

Each of Bible’s photographs seems a concentration in color. He relies on 35 mm Fugi color chrome to capture the impossible vivacity of color of two giraffes, the sweaty work of professional athletes, and the muted fog of a mountain.

Contrasting Bible’s largely nature-oriented pictures are Jacobs’ personal snapshots of intimate yet disturbing details. Using silver gelatin and chomogenic prints, Jacobs captures the details we are both drawn to and repulsed by — a close-up of woman’s handcuffed arms at the Women’s Correctional Institute in Jessup, Md., to a young girl at a Fayetteville beauty pageant to the wiry facial hairs of an aging woman.

Bryant’s images combine Bible’s use of nature and Jacobs’ use of man to create a matter-of-fact account of a specific place at a specific time. All seven of Bryant’s photographs were taken on assignment in Kuwait in 1998; they include soldiers in the rain, tanks in the setting sun, and young boys riding camels down heavily dusted streets.

Of his career as a free-lance photojournalist, Bryant, who lives and works in Savannah and relies solely on digital technology because of its speed, said, "I make a living at it everyday. My work has not blessed the walls of galleries and exhibit halls, but the pages of Time magazine, The New York Times and countless other global and national publications. That is the venue I feel my work is best suited for."

Whether the photographs of La Galerie Bleue and Bergen Hall are meant for the exhibition wall or the magazine rack is irrelevant. What is essential is the fact that two unique but complementary exhibitions showcasing the current and consequent talent of SCAD’s photography program are on display and are not to be missed.