Uncluttered, photographs by Dan
Neuberger, through July 16 | Image City Photography Gallery 722 University
Avenue | Gallery hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sunday noon-4 p.m.
| Free | Artist talk on Thursday, July 13, at 7 p.m. | Also showing photographs
by the Syracuse Camera Club and Photographs by Image City Photography Gallery
Partners. For more info call 271-2540 or visit online at
www.imagecityphotographygallery.com.
For
the love of it
The concept of an amateur in our culture has
taken on a negative connotation. Often it implies someone lacking professional
skill or performing a particular action without the ease of one who has done
something over and over again. But the word amateur designates something more.
It describes a person who does something as a pastime rather than a profession.
It also designates one who does something not for money but for the love of
just doing it. Indeed, the word amateur comes from the Latin amator, which
means lover.
Dan Neuberger, whose photographs are currently
on view at Image City Photography Gallery, is a real amateur in the true sense
of the word. Neuberger, who left his native Yugoslavia
for New York City
when he was 11 years old, became enamored with photography by the time he was
16. But his academic studies took him in a slightly different direction, having
received a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Rochester,
and he became a research scientist for Kodak.
Kodak and photography — need we say more? The
synergy of science and art allowed Neuberger to have a profession that he loved
as well as a pastime that he has passionately pursued to the present. Now
retired from Kodak, he spends much of his time with things photographic.
The photographs on view, representing different
bodies of work throughout a lifetime of “fixing an image,” reveal his love for
both the aesthetic as well as the scientific. Neuberger is not one to shy away
from technology. While many of the older photographs use more traditional media
(i.e., gelatin silver or chromogenic prints) and
could be called “straight” photography, his current work is dominated by the
digital print. Here, Neuberger manipulates, enhances, and plays with images,
fully utilizing modern-day computer image manipulation software. But he never
does this just for the sake of showing off or tricking the viewer.
In the series “Neglected Flowers (a.k.a.
weeds),” he uses high contrast to bring out the graphic quality of the weeds
against a simple white background, then reverses the ground to change the
effect and mood of the images. The composition is a respectful nod to Harry
Callahan who, in the 1940s through the 1960s, photographed weeds in the snow
and then developed and printed the photographs in such a manner as to create
graphic and expressionistic images.
Neuberger’s color work reveals his use of
nature’s colors as his inspiration, such as in “Elliptical Cloud,” while in a
triptych of barns he manipulates color not unlike the multiple registers of an
Andy Warhol screen print. Neuberger also has a sense of humor: in his wall
texts, he writes that if something does not work, then you “make it red” or if
all else fails, you “make it nude.” In the case of the latter, the nude is
actually two different views of a sculptural work by super-realist sculptor
John DeAndrea.
Neuberger could have become
a professional photographer, but maybe what would have been lost is the love of
things photographic. For Neuberger’s love of photography goes beyond his own
work; he lives and breathes the medium, supporting and inspiring others to love
what he loves. If it were just a job, he probably would have left his work at
the office.
This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2006.
