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Open Shutter hosts renowned photographers
Keith Carter, Janet Woodcock
by Mary Jane Carroll
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The works of photographers Keith
Carter, top photo, and Janet Woodcock will be on display
starting Friday and running through July 21 at the
Open
Shutter Gallery. Carter uses black and white photos
to capture simple images of people. Woodcock use sepia
tone in her images of rare domesticated animals. |
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Black and white photographs detailing the beauty of simplicity
will pay a visit to Durango beginning this week. On Friday,
the Open Shutter Gallery unveils the new exhibit, “Testimonials,”
featuring the work of internationally recognized photographers
Keith Carter and Janet Woodcock. The exhibit will be on
display through July 21.
“Testimonials” consists of 15 black and white
photographs of animals and people from Carter and 25 of
Woodcock’s sepia-toned domestic barn animals.
“Both are black and white, the purest form of photography,
done in the darkroom by both of the artists, and are a
medium format,” said Margy Dudley, Open Shutter
Gallery owner.
Known as a “Poet of the Ordinary,” Keith
Carter’s work has been widely exhibited in the United
States, Europe, and Latin America. Numerous permanent
Carter collections are on display everywhere from San
Francisco, Chicago and New York to his home state of Texas.
Photography was Carter’s single mother’s
sole profession, but his own talents did not reveal themselves
until he was in college. One day, while framing a shot
for his mother, he caught the lighting of a generic photo,
and he had the epiphany that launched his now successful
career.
 Carter
began by capturing life’s simplicity in the South
but has since tackled bigger subjects and photographed
people, objects and animals all over the globe. Soft focus
is one of Carter’s trademarks, according to Dudley,
and allows him to highlight gestures, persons or places.
Carter is currently the Walles Chair of Art at Lamar
University in Beaumont, Texas, and has received two National
Endowment for the Arts Regional Survey Grants.
“His work is really well known worldwide,”
said Sara Barry, manager of Open Shutter. “It is
unusual, and it makes you think.”
Sharing the gallery’s walls will be emerging photographer
Janet Woodcock. Her work for “Testimonials”
features rare breeds of domestic animals in sepia tone.
“The barnyard portraits are charming and intimate,
and the personalities of her subjects are clearly visible,”
Barry said.
Visiting all the way from Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.,
Woodcock will personally open the exhibit on Friday, May
21. Her educational background is in photography, and
she has studied the form at the University of Michigan,
New England School of Photography and the Art Institute
of Boston. She embarked on her career with commercial
work in newspapers, but soon took the initiative to do
her own work.
“My personal work has become more and more important
to me,” she said. “I stopped doing any assignment
work about five years ago.”
The mixture of the two photographers will bring a nice
balance to the exhibit, according to Dudley and Barry.
From a well-respected reputation to a rising talent, a
black and white style to a sepia-toned hue, an education
to a lifelong passion, the show offers an assortment of
interests.
“The two work well together,” Dudley said.
“They both tell stories.”
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