Love Eastern Sierra photography? Wantto support local families and businesses with your holiday shopping? Looking for a gift that gives back?
If you answered “Yes” to any of the above, we have a holiday gift idea for you.
The Project Room at Independent Project Pressin Bishop is now exhibiting the “Alternative Process Photography” prints of local artist and ESLT member, Joe Profita- and30% of all sale proceeds will benefit Eastern Sierra Land Trust’s conservation work!
Many locals already know Joe Profita from his years of teaching chemistry at Bishop High School. Joe retired from teaching a few years ago, but he has definitely not retired from practicing chemistry! Joe continues to work producing enigmatic photographic images, created from the mysterious alchemy of such substances as solutions of platinum, palladium, and iron salts, sodium carbonate and tannic acid.
Joe Profita’s careful, hands-on processing and deliberate experimentation combine over time to yield surprising, arresting images of stunning presence, and a timeless quality of light.
A collection of Joe’s original photographs are now on display and available for purchase at The Project Room, along withcopies of Joe Profita’s hand-made photographic accordion-fold books.
The Project Room is located at 186-A Willow St. in Bishop. Gallery hours are from 11am – 3pm on Saturdays, or by appointment during the week. To plan your visit, call or email Bruce Licher of Independent Project Press: (760) 873-3600 or .
Images in this exhibition range from panoramic landscapes to poetic architectural studies, to an interpretive reprinting of one his grandfather’s original film negatives from time served in Europe during the first World War.
In order to produce these images, Joe continues to experiment with finding and creating his own cameras, papers and chemistry. Joe has mastered a range of old schoolprinting techniques, or as he puts it, “very old school.” These techniques involve creating film negatives using a restored 1950’s folding camera, one of his several view cameras, or hand-built pinhole or slit cameras.
Though Joe does continue to produce silver prints using purchased paper and chemistry, he has become enamored with processes hearkening back to the early days of photography:platinum-palladium prints, cyanotypes, and even the little-known method of creating very altered and distressed prints known as mordan√ßage. As Joe puts it, these image-making processes resonate with a time when everything was “made from scratch.”
For moreon Joe Profita’s photographic work, please see his website:www.joeprofita.com.
About The Project Room:
The Project Room at Independent Project Press is located at 186-A Willow Street, just one block east of Main Street, in downtown Bishop. Curated by ESLT members Bruce & Karen Licher, The Project Room hosts periodic exhibitions of artwork, photography, and installations reflecting the diverse creative talents to be found in the Eastern Sierra.
