photo-eye Gallery
On View at photo-eye Gallery: Mitch Dobrowner & Edward Ranney
Edward Ranney and Mitch Dobrowner discuss their photographs currently on view at photo-eye Gallery.
Conventional Entropy, featuring photographs by Kevin O'Connell, runs at photo-eye Gallery through April 5, 2014. View our video interview with Kevin O'Connell
here. In addition to this exhibition, photo-eye Gallery is also showing a selection of work from our represented artists including Mitch Dobrowner and Edward Ranney, whose works in the show are featured in New Mexico Magazine's January 2014 issue, which can be read online
here and
here. We asked Ranney and Dobrowner to discuss their photographs currently on view in the gallery.
"The central axis of Star Axis, Charles Ross's naked eye observatory to observe the stars, is precisely aligned to Polaris. For many of the nearly 35 years I have been photographing the site's growth, it has seemed to be growing out of its own ruin. As the earth sculpture nears completion, it becomes a monument scaled to allow us to feel how the human form relates to cosmic space."—Edward Ranney
See more from the Star Axis series by Edward Ranney
"When I arrived (in Farmington NM) I was totally overwhelmed by my first distant sighting of this otherworldly formation. Over the next ten days I woke up at ungodly hours to drive long distances in order to arrive at first light, and then left after sundown each day in order to catch the last light driving over rocks, in mud, snow, rain, and sand. As we arrived in late December, the weather conditions made for cold/freezing, moody, atmospheric photographs, as well as giving me frozen fingers and toes. I spent the first eight days driving, scouting, and sitting quietly in the area surrounding Shiprock. It also seemed like the more time I spent in the area, the more I knew that I would need to be patient despite the cold. The morning of the eighth day I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and got into my truck in the freezing rain and snow — with a warm cup of coffee. From Farmington, the drive to Shiprock was 50 miles one way. It was snowing, and then raining, dark, and freezing. The thermometer on my truck read between two and twelve degrees above zero (Fahrenheit). For a few minutes there I remember thinking I was nuts. As this was the fifth time in eight days that I was making this trip (during this visit), my mind kept saying, 'Why are you going out again when you could have stayed with your family in a warm bed? You’re an idiot. You’re not going to get anything.' But I felt driven, as I wanted to capture the image I had driven 800 miles from California to get.
When I finally arrived at Shiprock that morning it was approx 5:45 a.m. The sun was just coming up and the Shiprock was behind a wall of clouds. When I finally stopped and stepped out with my camera and tripod, I sank ankle deep into cold mud. But when I looked up I knew that what was about to happen in front of me was the thing I had come all this way for.
For the next three hours I sat in front of Shiprock... not a soul around, and I felt like we had a conversation. There are the times when it's almost like Mother Nature is says, ‘Oh yeah, you’re out here for a snapshot? Prove to me that you’re for real.’ And eventually if you’re there, when you really tune it in... that’s what happened with Shiprock." —Mitch Dobrowner
See more from The Still Earth series by Mitch Dobrowner
For more information about Edward Ranney or Mitch Dobrowner, or to purchase a print, please contact
gallery@photoeye.com or call 505-988-5152 ext. 202.
