LYNNLY LABOVITZ /Signs of Life — Landscapes, light paintings, Portraits.

My interests as a photographer have spanned everything from editorial and documentary to fine art, portraiture, and landscape. It has been my vocation and avocation---in short, a compulsion and yearning to connect with the world around me.

I've considered myself to primarily be a portraitist--so much so that when questioned about my area of focus I've always insisted that I've never been very interested in photographing subject matter that didn't have a pulse. This is partially why it's so strange that in the past couple of years I have become captivated by landscape photography and more recently with ""light painting"".

The landscape images shown here, shot in the Bisti Wilderness and Chilean Patagonia, were my first experience falling in love with landscape photography. The completely unstructured, hyper-real beauty I found presented me with an entirely different way of experiencing my own emotions and the healing forces of nature. It felt like portraiture, but on a higher, more universally shared plane of existence.

"light painting" is accomplished by working in the dark and leaving the shutter of the camera open for an undefined amount of time while using a variety of ordinary flashlights to "paint" a subject or scene. While I suppose I could attempt to quantify and measure how to best achieve predictable results with this fundamentally unpredictable technique--it is the completely spontaneous and unpredictable nature of "light painting" that I find so compelling. I find that "light painting" provides a kind of spontaneous creative license to influence the outcome of an image as it's being shot.

Over the past year my world has become seemingly very small; defined by my battle with breast cancer. The usual freedom to haul gear and work on an assortment of projects has been frequently curtailed by hospital stays, medications and bouts of sleeplessness. Contemplating my own fragility and mortality has moved me to reach for my camera and try again to see and connect with the world around me—painting with light—looking for small miracles in an unfurled sunflower or a vibrant piece of fruit. Looking for signs of life in myself often in the darkness of night—with camera, tripod and flashlights.

The 4 large light painted images printed onto canvas were not altered using Photoshop. I do not alter my images or rely on combining images. I do shoot digitally and use digital darkroom methods to produce images that will appear as much as possible as I experienced them initially.

I print using Epson equipment on Moab archival rag paper. Canvas prints were produced with much blood, sweat and expertise by PixelOutpost (www.pixeloutpost.com). Framing was done with loving care by Back To The Picture on Valencia Street.

Lynnly Labovitz
www.lynnly.com