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A Season in four movements
Winter in northeast Ohio is a time of wonder as light and shadow dance on a fresh canvas of snow. Gone is the sound of leaves along with the debate about who is most colorful, which tree is tallest, who has the most interesting shape. Devoid of foliage each tree appears to have roots on both ends and the dead, camouflaged in snow, stand side by side with the living. Walking this landscape, my footsteps the only sound, I am rendered silent in a wonderland.
Fulfilling a promise, an “assignment from within”, the winter of 2024 (a winter without snow in NE Ohio) was spent editing 35 years of trees. Each file revealed a sense of place, feelings not forgotten, each alive with sound and memory. I had no agenda (though a Trees book is long overdue), the exercise was open ended in nature. Image editing often changes what you thought you were building, entire projects coming to the surface during the process.
What started as the Trees project became a body of work I call “Winterness”. My favorite subjects made in my season, and in my favorite place; home. Close and careful study of winter’s effect on the land would also reveal Winterness in ways that were not trees. The tonal scale and brightness of this work compares favorably to music; a major scale utilizes all of the white keys, the black keys played rarely and act as syncopation. The four separate portfolios in Winterness each represent individual statements, the sum of all the parts a larger theme. Arranged on the editing table, 4 separate bodies of work, 38 images, all quietly whispered the same emotion — Winterness.
Chris Coffey
Winter 2025
As a young man I wandered the green spaces/parks near my home as well as the factories and rail yards. Both taught me about light and the effect the seasons have on it — valuable currency for picture making. I wandered with any destination in mind but it’s possible that I found a version of me that would not have been possible on any other path.
The camera didn’t take me outdoors — the outdoors took me to the camera as a way of telling others the story. This education was augmented via travel by rail to New Mexico, home of my mother’s family. From the window of the train whole worlds were made visible, the sky so much larger than any painting or photograph, human presence right-sized in relation to the natural world, and I consider the window of the train my first camera.
Later the camera was added to my wandering and though the results were wide of the mark I was not discouraged. Decades later a couple of beginning darkroom classes introduced me to that magic that occurs when a blank piece of paper comes to life in the developer tray. Dedicated study of lots of photographs (still a ritual for me) taught me what good photographs are, resulting in what I refer to as a visual literacy. Making (and throwing away) lots of prints and the study under master print makers educated me to what was possible emotionally in the fine print.
Experience revealed that my landscapes and man made subjects are really the same — only the approach is different. While work in the natural world demands that I find order in the incredible chaos that is nature, the built environment requires that I discover the disorder in what was designed to be orderly. Both require command of the “supreme instant”, that moment when the light is like no other time. Human made subjects introduced me to geometry, the first but not the only non-verbal language I would learn.
Over the years I have been asked one question repeatedly; “what is your favorite picture?” The quick answer has always been “the next one”, but really, the ones I value most are the images made of something unnoticed before and now made visible by training the eye.
September 2023
For the technically curious
Since 1995 I have utilized various sizes of large format camera from 4”x5” up to 7” x 17”. Beyond the obvious benefit of a lot of detail in the resulting print and the ability to use the camera movements to replicate how the human eye sees, it is the slow and contemplative approach required by working this way that has served my vision the most. At times, during the 5 - 10 minutes required to set up and level the camera a more interesting view is often 10 feet away from where I stopped. And there are other times when during that set up routine I change my mind about what is in front of me and walk away because I or someone else has done it before, or because it’s good but not great. As your seeing matures you realize the one you are willing to walk away from is the most important image of the day.
Prints are made in a traditional darkroom, always by me, and to archival standards from selenium toning and washing of the prints to use of only archival mounting and matting materials. And when a project dictates it, I wet scan negatives to work in the digital environment using pigmented inks on watercolor paper.
For Print orders or to request an in-person lecture/presentation for your art or camera group please contact me directly
330.714.1481