This gallery is for BVAA member Evan Plante.
Artist’s Statement
I don’t remember a time in my life when I was not taking photos… although the early years were decidedly more journalistic than artistic. Over time I learned what I liked to see on a print… and I have learned to subordinate the journalism. So now, I just shoot what I want when I want and how I want.
That being said, my visual tastes are eclectic, and this shows up in my subject range. I’m a sucker for rusty metal embedded in granite, backlit grass and moppets. I love a clover in macro and the biggest sky you can imagine. I love intimate candids of my grandkids and a stranger’s silhouette. But the images that draw me in are the ones that crop themselves as I walk by… and I’m not sure why… but it’s those I am compelled to capture in this phase of my life.
I also love understatement — in life and in literature — and perhaps this is why I often underexpose when I shoot. I feel that darker images draw people in while the brighter ones push people away. But I don’t feel that underexposure under-reveals. On the contrary. Whatever we create reveals the self.
“Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him. I may very likely be condemning myself, all the time that I am writing this book, for I know that whether I like it or no I am portraying myself more surely than I am portraying any of the characters whom I set before the reader.”
(The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler, 1835-1902)
Evan Plante
Worcester, MA