Notable

Atlanta History Center exhibition showcases professor’s photography

Atlanta History Center’s Swan Coach House Gallery will present “White Balance”, an exhibition of photography by Christina Price Washington, lecturer in art and photography at Oglethorpe.

Professor Christina Price Washington (center) pictured with Caroline Chamberlain ’19 (left).

Held in conjunction with Atlanta Celebrates Photography, the show opens today and runs through November 7, 2019.

This exhibition presents finely printed photographs and photo-based print media that play with the concept of “white balance” within the traditions of photography. Proper camera white balance has to take into account the “color temperature” of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light.

Price Washington, known for her photographic abstractions and theoretical investigations, explores alternative interventions between light values, who determines them, and how they are mediated in contemporary printed methods. Her work transcends the physicality of a photograph; she investigates the systems of image-making itself.

Price Washington uses and interrogates specific and commonly accepted tools that have determined how photography has historically evaluated color, lightness, and darkness. Such valuations were aesthetic decisions made in the early 20th century by pioneers of photography such as Ansel Adams, who developed the Zone System incorporating the concept of “middle grey.” The light values are then reproduced in print via a halftone technique that simulates continuous tone imagery through the use of dots.

One hundred years before Adams, the inventor of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot suggested using photographic screens or veils to achieve this photographic process. This history inspires Price Washington’s investigation.

“Working in between traditional black and white processes and the contemporary digital frontier, Price Washington creates photographs that document subtle tonal variations that can be found within the plain, bright light of day,” said K.Tauches, the exhibition curator.

A conversation with the artist will be held on Saturday, November 2, 3 p.m. at the Swan Coach House Gallery.

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