STAFF PICKS - Our Favorite Photographs From the Gallery’s Collection     Jul 16 - Aug 28, 2009

The galleries staff is made up of 11 individuals with a range of experience with photography, all bonded by their unwavering appreciation of the medium. While some members of the staff stuck with one theme or aesthetic, others chose randomly, both approaches giving the viewer insight as to the similarities and differences in how we all see and what moves us.

With over 30,000 pictures to choose from, it was challenging to narrow it down to just five a piece. All had personal reasons for their choices and the result is a group of pictures that capture our imagination, heighten our understanding of the medium, transport us to another time and place, and overwhelm us with their beauty.

These photographs inhabit my imagination. For some I want to be the woman in the car, or looking out the small window onto the streets of New York, or dancing in the ballet. For others I want to know the cause of pain on the woman’s face, transform into a Geisha, and simply to laugh with the three little boys.
-Ali Price

What do we take from a child’s happy dash into the summer or a diver’s leap into the great unknown? Can a common humanity be found in a face of war or perhaps in a trucker’s lewd scribbles? I like to think that each photograph is indeed a great discovery pertinent to our very survival. In the tradition of the poet William Carlos Williams, an ice cream bar is both magical and worthy of our contemplation.
- Pak So

That interplay between the formal and the evocative is a common thread between these seemingly disparate photos. However, the compositional choices, which are often striking … They all say something about life, which isn’t always beautiful but it is real.
-Racael Petersman