Truth to Light

Photos and Blog by Pete Ambrose

Out of light comes truth. It allows us to tap into our deepest imagination and reveal the world's surreal emotional hues.  Visual potential is dictated by what the formal aspects of a photograph can emote and executed through the intense spirit of the information made available to the viewer's eye.  Photography is about capture, a framed eulogy of moments ever-present, but immortalized through the everlasting.  Most importantly, it's a facility for which to transfer, transport, and access individual sentiment within each and every soul who takes in the reality it displays.  I explore, observe, create…light.  The summation is my aesthetic attempt to bring light to truth and my conceptual attempt to bring truth to light – blending layered meaning, focused statements rearing opinion and allowing opinion to rear itself. 

No previous series I've worked on has allowed me the opportunity to explore the extraordinary visual potential of the straight photograph as much as the series I reveal today.  I remind you of the straight photograph…the captured image as is, produced by the camera – no digital alterations other than simple color correction.  With this series, I remind you of the endless possibilities and the power it has over any photograph with digital padding and effect.  Reactive make-up/paint, light and wardrobe were used as the aesthetic drive to bring these images to life.  Using those devices, along with the technical allotments and limitations of the straight photograph, the goal was to create works of Art rooted in the modern movement, grown out of contemporary glamour and dipped into a colorful world of surrealistic expressionism.  The designs, angles and artificial light ask the viewer to challenge their own emotional digestion of the visually antagonizing images, their perspective within the medium as a whole, and the photograph itself as a stand alone work.

Art allows for existence to be categorized by alternate explanations – where scientific holes exist, its creation fills those voids, both emotionally and subconsciously.  I don't want the viewer merely to bask in the images' formal aesthetics, but to derive a wide range of emotional relevance to their own experience of ecstasy, fear, melancholy, passion, pain, power, sensuality – the organic chemistry produced from Art's solidifying synergy of tangible expression, technical prowess, and inexpressible visual sensation.

These images are meant to breath, pulsate, and bloom – to reinvent their own context for which they exist and were created each time they are looked upon and each time they are ignored.

In the greater scheme of the project, it's meant to be a utter rejection of the contemporary conventional reliance, a sign of faith to the human mind, to the camera – a technical and stylistic tip of the cap to Adams, Arbus, Lange, Weston, Mann, Eggleston, Wall, Ritts, Sherman, Goldin and the other masters…all of whom ventured fearlessly into a hurricane of conceptual risk, a majority rule of rejection against their visual grain.  What reigned supreme was the confidence they possessed in their own vision, their own ability to see above and beyond the "industry standard".  They loyally wore their respective cameras (ironically many were defective and technically deficient ranging in format from 35 mm to 8 x 10) as the defining symbol of their talent, and a reminder of why they were influential – why they were great.  To me photography is a piece of clay.  I didn't sign up to be molded, but rather to mold, to honor the medium with utmost deference for what came before and what can still be after today.

The base techniques of the project were set forth upon this rejection and the realization for the visual potential of what could literally lie in front of us waiting to be captured.  The lights used were highly unconventional to the medium or any other for that matter, mainly because of their high unpredictability and immeasurability with regards to exposure.  I've always been a fan of texture.  Some photos should be smooth and some you should feel the grain of the work, like visual brail, without ever running your hand across the image.  I shot at a high ISO to contradict the otherwise smooth and surreal results – break away from any emotional gloss, creating an aesthetic struggle similar to the complexities of the human mind.  We used make-up that was supplemental to the light, and of course wasn't really make-up at all but rather a form of paint.  The application of such was meant to be unpredictable, haunting, breeding shape and form atop human shape and form, and alas, atop human emotion.  The chemical reaction created where the paint met the light allowed one of the most important aspects in all model-based photography to be eradicated – the eyes.  Lost are the windows to the soul, the indicators of emotion, and the guide to why the rest of the picture exists in exhibition at all.  This forced the models to emote on an equal plane with the paint and surrounding backgrounds, but furthermore, it provoked emotional revelation through body language, gesture, arms, hands, lips, and furrowed eye brows.  The results alone display a clear delineation of communication from the subtlest and often overlooked supplements to our visual cortex.

It was my utmost pleasure to create this project in a highly collaborative effort and environment with wonderful artists.  First and foremost my Make-Up Artist…scratch that…Artist, Stephanie Lawrence.  Her unique vision, detailed designs, and ability to understand the end goal of both the single image and project as a whole became a staple of what was created.  She used an airbrush, stencils, paint brushes, her hands and other tools of the trade and many others to turn the model's bodies into a canvas of creation and expression.  Rare is it to come across an artist so technically gifted on the one hand, yet so diverse and solidified in her ability to create different looks upon the body and face using a multitude of materials while creating an equally exponential range of visual endpoints.  Stephanie…thank you for supporting my vision and being an equal partner in bringing it to life. 

Along with Stephanie was Ryan Gray, who lent a tireless hand, creative wisdom and helped facilitate these successful shoots.

The three models that subjected their bodies to the project were courageous, experimental and as energetic a group as I've ever worked with.  Midori, Kari, and Emily were true artistic soldiers and accomplished models in commercial fields ranging from high fashion to glamour, willing to participate in a project that was purely for art sake.  Their open mind, energy and professionalism will benefit them greatly (and has) as they ascend within their own medium.  They are symbols of my own adage that all truly great models are great artists…

On a small side note, the next direction I'm taking my work is again unlike anything you've seen from me before.  In the midst our current social discourse, especially within our country, I am going to be focusing on a handful of bodies of work laden with explicit social statements and juxtapositions.  They have been my most complex undertakings, having been in conceptual construction since January.  Be prepared for another photographic exploration…this time to mirror who we are as a society and who we all have the potential to be.  Expect these projects to be unveiled in early June, with a post of continued work in May.

Enjoy the new images in the album of the same name along with continued work in other series.

Best,

Pete