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DARKROOM SOAK PHOTOFLOW PROFESSIONALI’d love to be a professional photographer one day, making big concept pieces. So I’m just trying to get to college as soon as I can and keep developing my work. Professionally, I’d love to get some stuff in a gallery, but that’s very difficult. ![]() Now I’m trying to focus less on technical aspects of photography but more on conceptual stuff, to kind of push the way I’m taking photos. My goal for a while was to find my eye, to really be able to capture what I want in a project. I found photography to be a cool way to express myself. I’ve always wanted something I could be good at. What motivates you the most about photography now? We caught up with Arthur recently to talk about his work, where he finds inspiration and the value of the past. I found that everything looked completely out of place there and I feel that this photo really encapsulates my feeling that people really do not belong in the desert.” Photo © Arthur Wechsler. DARKROOM SOAK PHOTOFLOW SERIESIn this series I studying the contrasting environment of Arizona. “This is my favorite photo from my Arizona series. I’ve just started watching Twin Peaks,” he laughed. His series on the environment of contrasts found in Arizona makes one appreciate California all the more. This past summer he shot a series of images on places of prayer-Arthur grew up Jewish on his father’s side but went to a Catholic middle school. DARKROOM SOAK PHOTOFLOW SKINHis portfolio includes self-portraits of the skin on his arms and legs affected by vitiligo. Identity is a central theme in his work, evident in his college portfolio (he recently submitted applications to Parsons in New York City and Lewis & Clark in Portland, OR), both in terms of identity in his own skin (literally) and his relationship with the world around him. I think it’s interesting to explore that and to think about who I am and how I can represent that through photography,” he said. While I was there I did a project about identity and how I’ve found my own identity in high school, which is particularly challenging. “I spent a semester at an art school in Napa called Oxbow. He shoots primarily with 35mm film and his “new” Pentax 6×7, a medium format camera that debuted not too long after the Korean War ended. Now a senior at the Bay School in San Francisco, photography has been a way for Arthur to reflect on who he is, as an artist and as a person, and develop his own identity. Stuart Schwartz, owner of The Image Flow, and the rest of the TIF team work regularly with high school and college students to prepare their portfolios for college admission. “One thing I tried to impress on Arthur several months ago was to shoot more digital-to help him develop his eye and at the same time not restrict himself with the cost of film,” Stuart said. DARKROOM SOAK PHOTOFLOW HOW TO“Stuart has been helping me, giving me suggestions on how to improve my prints in the darkroom, and reviewing my portfolio to make sure it’s ready for college.” The goal of this series to show how unnatural nature can look.” Photo © Arthur Wechsler. For this one, I am shooting photos in nature, which is something I try to stay away from but after a summer living in Inverness, CA, I found that there are lots of parallels between nature and the city. “This is actually one of two series that I am currently working on. My school doesn’t have a darkroom, so that’s when I found The Image Flow in Mill Valley,” he explained. “I started teaching myself how to do film photography, and then I wanted to teach myself how to do darkroom processing. “They were a lot better than me, so I was shooting them instead of trying to get tricks myself,” he admitted.Īrthur began with digital photography but found it wasn’t as appealing as he’d expected. His family traveled often and Arthur started shooting on their trips. I was 11 or 12 at the time,” Arthur said. “One day, I think a year before he passed away, I asked for a camera, and he got me one for Christmas. His grandfather was a photographer in the Korean War and Arthur had one of his old cameras sitting in his room “forever.” The absence of a face in a self-portrait is really important in these photos as I hope that it shows the emotional component of this condition.” Photo © Arthur Wechsler.Īrthur Wechsler discovered photography at an early age. I chose to not show my face in it because during this shoot I felt that I was more recognizable by my skin condition. The photos expose my biggest insecurity at the time: my skin condition. I set up a Rolleiflex on a tripod one night while at an art school I attended called Oxbow and took these ‘self-portraits.’ This is one photo from the diptych that they are normally presented as. “This is without a doubt my most personal project. The sparse and introspective work of 17-year-old photographer Arthur Wechsler is inspired by Larry Sultan, Nobuyoshi Araki, his grandfather, and David Lynch. ![]()
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