LANCASTER LENS

When I asked Charles Heisterkamp, III, M.D. if he would be interested in guest curating an exhibition of work by local photographers, his response was an immediate and unequivocal “yes”. He set to work with alacrity and shortly after our first conversation, he presented me with portfolios and statements by thirteen photographers, many of whom are associated with Lancaster’s Camera Club. His selections represent a variety of styles, interests, subjects, and photographic processes. Charles is also responsible for the design and organization of this Blurb book, the first on-demand publication with which the Lancaster Museum of Art has participated.

Lancaster Lens does not aspire to be an encyclopedic snapshot of current directions in contemporary photography, or even what is being done in the county. Rather it is one person’s selection. That the selection is informed, does not negate its subjective nature.

If, unconsciously, we are each differently drawn to certain clusters of ideas, images, or emotions; then what bubbles up from this grouping of work by different photographers? What do Shauna Frischkorn’s teens adrift or Heisterkamp’s men in hirsute pride have to do with each other? Each, like Prufrock, will “prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet” yet it seems that beneath the facial topography lurks a certain alienation that manifests itself as boastful or sullen or lonely. Loneliness also pervades Pat Cooney’s inside/outside street scenes.

Heisterkamp’s is an introspective and frequently nostalgic selection that evokes alternate realities. Charles Gaul’s images capture scenes from idyllic Mediterranean islands of azure sea and golden sun (and no pesky people); they recall Baudelaire’s “Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,/Luxe, calme et volupté.” (There all is order and beauty,/Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.) Joseph Hunt’s photographs show the grace and beauty of exotic, endangered species in their native habitats while Tom Debiec’s are frozen and composed in museum dioramas—a harbinger of loss or the future? Childhood toys, whether Virginia Caputo’s old-fashioned cloth or John Flinchbaugh’s modern molded plastic dolls, recall our youth and become players, in different ways, in more adult narratives. José Urdaneta’s glamour photographs recall those once risqué, but now seemingly innocent, pin-ups from the 1940s and 50s. They contrast with Fred Albright’s broken windows or Blake Ziegler’s corroded painted surfaces or K. K. DePaul’s personal ruminations on mortality. Ruins and decrepitude are the flip side of the youth and beauty coin.

The sense of nostalgia is reinforced by several of the photographers embracing retro techniques such as tintypes, toy cameras, and processes that recall magic lantern images thrown upon a screen or illustrations torn from old biology texts.

In sum this selection represents a wonderful example of how one sensibility can find patterns, linkages, and common themes among works with different subjects and aesthetic approaches.