The Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging

John Lucas began taking photographs as a young student and continued through his doctoral studies, taking street images of life around him in England and while traveling in Europe, Turkey, and Morocco.

But during the 1970s he gave up serious photography, finding it incompatible with the demands of his scientific career in physics.
Then, on a journey to Russia in 1981, he took a series of Polaroid photographs in a coffeehouse.

" While this project was pursued with characteristic intensity, it took until 2007 to bring it to life through a combination of a strong sense of ‘unfinished business,’ advances in digital processing, and most precious of all, time," Lucas says.

A series of his photographs, Soviet Restaurant Polaroids, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA.

The project began when Lucas was in the Russian coffeehouse and used his Polaroid to take a picture of the cake he had been served.

" Within seconds of the camera’s flash I was mobbed with desperate requests for portraits by a clientele steeped in the privations of a Soviet winter," Lucas says. " The demand was clearly insatiable, even with my generous supply of film."

" At this point, I felt I had two choices; to abandon the cake and run, or to impose order on the situation. Without a word of Estonian or Russian, the unique character of Polaroid photography served as my language for convincing an apprehensive waitress to pose for a photograph. This was perceived as our arrangement and the commotion evaporated."

Decades later, Lucas explains, " I set about changing the small images of women and the food they provided into 16-by-20- inch giclee prints, using scale to transform the obsolescent icon of the Polaroid image into a defiant gesture. Rather than restore the original colors I sought dramatic effect through a richer palette."

The Griffin satellite gallery, which had been at 4 Clarendon St. in Boston’s South End, has moved back to its renovated and expanded space in Belmont.
The exhibit is open to the public Mondays through Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Lance Keimig, who is known for his night photography, says he is “most at ease after the sun has set, free to explore the solitary wonder of this hidden world.”

A series of his images, Desert Nights, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, March 28 through May 6. A reception and informal talk with the artist is April 25, 6-8 p.m.

"Most people experience the desert as a barren and empty wasteland from the comfort of their air-conditioned cars," Keimig says. "Cruising along at 75, it’s easy to miss the subtlety and beauty of the quiet landscapes between the national parks of the American West.
"I’m drawn to the desert by the fierceness of the landscape, and the unique culture of the people who live there."

He adds that in the desert “the evidence of humanity’s tenuous existence there is slowly absorbed back into the Earth, and I’ve long been compelled to photograph it while it lasts. The night provides cover for my photographic explorations, cover from the blistering heat and the hard light of the midday sun."

Keimig, a Massachusetts-based photographer, is best know for nocturnal images which are often made at the juncture of built and natural environments.

His book, Night Photography – Finding Your Way in the Dark, was published by Focal Press in August 2010 and has been translated into six languages.

Keimig is curator of Darkness, Darkness, a traveling exhibit of night photography that opened in 2008 at Harvard University’s Three Columns Gallery, where he was curator from 2005 to 2010.

He has taught at the New England School of Photography in Boston since 2000, and has also taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, The Houston Center for Photography. He leads independent workshops and is a frequent speaker and workshop instructor for photographic events around the country.

His photographs are held in numerous collections including The Art Complex Museum in Duxbury, MA, The Boston Athenaeum, The Boston Public Library, The Grace Museum in Abilene, TX, State Street Bank, Fidelity Investments, Paramount Partners, Hitachi, Rayovac, and 3 Com.

A psychology major turned photographer and educator, John Hirsch urges viewers of his work to probe and reflect on the ideas of community, recreation, and land use in America.

A series of his images, And Again: Photographs from the Harvard Forest, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, January 18 through March 24. A reception with the artist is February 21, 6-8 p.m.

The subject of his photographs is a research forest that has been owned and operated by Harvard University since 1907.

“The forest offers a place where times passage is more consciously studied than almost anywhere else on the planet,” Hirsch says. “A place where technology and nature are so viscerally and overtly entwined that cables and wires emerge from the ground and descend from the sky, where trees are wrapped in plastic and metal, and the growth and movements of all things are tracked with unending precision.”

Hirsch says that like the work scientists do in the forest, his images “seek to find a balance between description and intervention.”
He adds, “This work is about a desire to understand, describe, and predict the evolutions of our surroundings while showing reverence for the sublime moments in a place.”

Hirsch, of Roslindale, MA, received a certificate in photography from the Maine Photographic Workshop in 2002. He has taught workshops in Maine and Boston and is now teaching photography at Noble & Greenough School in Dedham, MA.

The Griffin satellite gallery, which had been at 4 Clarendon St. in Boston’s South End, has moved back to its renovated and expanded space in Belmont.

Robert Moran’s personal photography projects have taken him around the world. But for this series of images, he focused his lens on “common objects that are past their prime.”

Of the objects in the series, Moran says, “Once relied upon, they have been forgotten or discarded. I photographed each item singly in order to reveal its individual essence.

“Cracks and scuffs of hard use. Mended hinges. Patches worn smooth by frequent polishing”

Moran adds, “I came to appreciate how often function dictates form, and how frequently the form is right.”

He said in some cases the objects were used for years by one person, while in other cases they passed through many hands.

“They’ve been used in homes, offices, a school gym, and taken on house calls by a country doctor,” Moran says. “All of them have stories.”
Selecting and photographing the items caused him to “think about the events in my life to which objects have borne witness. In a sense, they are our partners in life.”

Moran says that over the years he has taken pictures of everything from classic cars to icebergs “and now…a table fan.”

“Each time, I strive to capture something of my subject’s essential spirit,” he says. “In this project, I have tried to achieve that by selecting items that display a unique aura, and in many cases, reveal wear and tear obtained from many years of use.”

Moran, a fine art photographer, lives on Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine. His interest in photography began at age 12. After studying art at the University of Maine, he ran several businesses over the course of 20 years.
During that time, he pursued personal photography projects on trips to Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. His recent undertakings have taken him to Cuba and Antarctica.

Moran’s work has been shown in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. His photographs are included in private collections in the U.S., as well as in Australia and Europe. His award-winning photographs have recently been published in The Photo Review, Shots Magazine, and B&W + Color Magazine.
The Griffin satellite gallery, which had been at 4 Clarendon St. in Boston’s South End over the past year, has moved back to its renovated and expanded space in Belmont.

June 30^th – September 10^th, 2010

Andy Ryan’s serene images of the sleek and mind-boggling-massive landmark projects of Beijing sparked awe-inspired conversation well past the viewing hours of the opening at the Griffin Gallery at Digital Silver Imaging.

Architects marveled at the scale and scope of Steven Holl’s Linked Hybrid complex including sky bridges containing a suspended swimming pool, gallery, theater and auditorium.  The bird’s nest design of the Beijing National Stadium, home of the 2008 Summer Olympics, was dwarfed from a distance. In comparison, the close-up capturing the broom-welding harnessed workers cleaning the façade brought home the magnitude of this $500 million feat of engineering and was a favorite among viewers.

Photographers marveled at the 3 sepia-toned prints from Polaroid Type 55 negatives which exemplify DSI’s mission of the art of B&W; in a digital world. The fairy tale quality captured in “Heaven” belies the gritty reality of this dangerous construction site. Kudos to our intern extraordinaire, Anna Rotti, who mastered this tricky technique.

The talk of the show were the fiber based prints flush mounted to aluminum. The unique sizes and ability to have the print float off the wall make for a stunning, clean and modern presentation. It amplified the starkness of the cutting edge architecture.

DSI had our own feat of grandeur in creating the workflow to provide these beautiful pieces. We are excited to add this output option to our services.

Andy provided a comprehensive presentation of the landmark projects in a digital slideshow.