DEJA VIEWS; SANTA FE'S PHOTOGRAPHIC LEGACY.

Byline: DOUGLAS FAIRFIELD

Of all the contemporary and traditional art that comes and goes through Santa Fe, perhaps the most progressive work can be seen in photography or photo-based media. From the get-go, when photography entered the public arena in 1839, picture takers pushed the boundaries of the new medium. Thanks to French painter and dioramist Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre (1787-1851) and the daguerreotype and to Englishman, mathematician, and chemist William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) and his calotype and paper negative we were freed to look at the world, and ourselves, in new ways. Consequently, photographers sought to produce imagery that went beyond straight documentation.

Manipulation of the medium began as a religious experience -- or so it appeared when, in 1839, an anonymous photographer superimposed an engraving of the head of Christ onto a photo-based image of an oak leaf. Appropriate for the time, it seemed a very Emersonian suggestion that God is nature and nature is God.

Soon enough, other photographers were producing allegorical pictures that spoke to people's moral and emotional compasses. Using an estimated 30 negatives and a troupe of actors staged to portray various aspects of virtue and vice, Swedish photographer Oscar Rejlander's combination print The Two Ways of Life (1857) was a sensation. In fact, a version of it was collected by Queen Victoria, a fact that, in turn, silenced a group of do-gooders bent on censoring the photograph for its partial nudity.

We've come a long way both as viewers and as image creators. Photographers and artists have led the medium into the 21st century by generating imagery that is challenging, beautiful, or shocking. In New Mexico, photography's roots run deep, and it is not surprising that the photo community in Santa Fe continues to grow and broaden our concept of what the medium can do.

"The role of Santa Fe and New Mexico in the history of American photography cannot be overemphasized," Santa Fe photographer Ford Robbins says. "I believe it is essential that Santa Fe recognize and celebrate its primary role in that history."

In our relatively small city, many people, galleries, and organizations are devoted to the art and craft of photography. In addition to individual studios and those galleries in town that feature photography along with other art forms, Santa Fe has venues exclusive to photo-based imagery, including Verve Gallery of Photography, Monroe Gallery of Photography, Andrew Smith Gallery, Photogenesis, Photo-eye Gallery, Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd., Ward Russell Photography, Lisa Kristine Gallery, and the Gallery of the North American Indian, which promotes the work of Edward S. Curtis. The Photo-eye Bookstore also sells nearly everything ever printed on the subject of photography.

For more than 20 years, Santa Fe Workshops has offered training and guidance in photography through one-day workshops and travel excursions throughout the world. Center -- formerly the Santa Fe Center for Photography -- is a nonprofit organization founded in 1994 to provide opportunities for serious photographers and to recognize achievement in photography with competitions and with its annual Review Santa Fe event, in which a select group of photographers share their work with invited experts from museums, galleries, universities, and publishing houses.

Now PhotoArts Santa Fe takes center stage. The 10-day roster of photographic events -- including workshops, exhibits, and studio tours -- began last week and continues through Sunday, Aug. 2. This weekend's events include the PhotoArts Market, the Alternative Photography International Symposium (APIS), and portfolio reviews.

"My husband, Richard Sullivan, and I held the first photographer's organizing meeting [for PhotoArts Santa Fe] at our home in 1999," Melody Bostick, project manager of the event, said via e-mail. "We wanted to bring together individual photographers, educational institutions, museums, galleries, and anyone else [who] had an interest in promoting Santa Fe as a photographic destination. We dreamed of a unified effort to enhance and promote Santa Fe's photographic importance locally, nationally, and globally."

In 2001, Larry Ogan of the Santa Fe Council for the Arts helped Bostick and Sullivan organize the first PhotoArts Santa Fe biennial festival. Ogan, in a telephone interview with Pasatiempo, said that this year's event offers more field trips and more presentations than in previous years. The PhotoArts Market, however, will see fewer vendors because of the economy, he said.

The market is a commercial affair set up at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe (see Page 37 for details) during which photographers feature their work and product manufacturers display the most recent materials and equipment.

APIS continues Friday, July 31, and Saturday, Aug. 1, at Warehouse 21. "When APIS comes to Santa Fe as part of this event, I am always excited," said Andrew Smith of Andrew Smith Gallery. "APIS is one of the terrific groups of photographers in the world, the other being the Daguerreian Society; its members are distinguished photographers and conservators who are interested not only in the history of photography but in reviving various historic and contemporary chemical processes."

The portfolio review -- to be held at El Museo on Saturday, Aug. 1 -- is new to PhotoArts. "I really enjoy reviewing portfolios," said Kate Ware, photo curator at the New Mexico Museum of Art and one of the invited reviewers. "A lot of the work I do needs isolation, whether in the library or in collections storage, so the reviews offer a chance to emerge from the depths and have a direct exchange with photographers. I'm interested in hearing what the artist is trying to accomplish in the work and then addressing his/her strategies from the curatorial side of the table. If the artist has nothing to say with the pictures, the conversation is dead in the water."

Robbins, a reviewer at this and previous events, has seen his share of work. "I have found that one of my major challenges as a reviewer is that the participating artists range between all levels of ability and professionalism, each with different goals," he said. "Therefore, my approach to a portfolio is more conversational than critical, because I view my role as closer to that of a teacher focusing on building skill levels than a curator or critic focusing on the artist's relationship to the current state of the art world."

Joan Gentry, also a professional photographer and reviewer for PhotoArts, has led photographic workshops for 15 years. "First, do no harm," she said via e-mail. "I treat the review process as a critique aimed at finding what the photographer is trying to say in his/her image and helping this person find out how to reach [his or her] goals photographically." Three basic components Gentry looks for in a portfolio are craft, expressive intent, and the work's place in the history of photography.

Having participated in the planning of PhotoArts for the last six years, photographer Don Kirby will team with Gentry as a reviewer. "I think it is important to get more than one viewpoint," he said. Personally, the review experience pays dividends for Kirby: "New work refreshes my sensibilities, keeps me current, and, if it is good, is rewarding just to absorb."

I hope our city continues to be one of the most vital and visionary centers for photography. "The thriving photo ecosystem here is pretty amazing, with a full spectrum of artists, galleries, collectors, schools, workshops, nonprofits, museums, publishers, and even a bookstore devoted to photography," Ware said. "That richness is something I really want to be a part of, both as a consumer and a participant." <2