Dean Askin

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Artist's Statement

Dean Askin
Artist Statement for Utata big project, July 2007

I'm not a professional photographer; I've been taking photographs for over 30 years. In the 1970s, I was interested primarily in travel, documentary and street photography. At the same time, I was always fascinated by semi-abstract patterns and textures. For a long time, I stopped taking pictures. About five years ago I bought a digital camera and in 2005 a DSLR. This renewed my interest in serious photography.

For the 2007 Utata projects, I chose three sets: a selection of recent landscapes, a set of old images from the 1970s and some recent 'abstract expressionist macro photographs'.

The landscapes are all from a recent trip to Louisiana - I haven't been there since 1978 or so. Most of these images are self-explanatory. You should visit Louisiana - it's a wonderful place!! And New Orleans is slowly coming back . So many American cities (NYC included) are losing their historical context, or encapsulating it in a tourist bubble. In New Orleans, the historical environment is wonderfully, and lovingly, preserved for locals, not just tourists.

The macro abstractions series needs more explanation. The series started as an accident, which led to an exploration of color and depth of field. The accident was a test macro shot of a hair brush; I was intrigued by how the shallow depth of field interacted with the surfaces and space. Over the last six months, I've explored a series of shots based on brushes and other objects, colored backgrounds and lighting to discover unusual shapes, colors and textures.

Technique

These images are shot with an Opteka slide duplicator. This lens gives a very narrow depth of field and about a 1 inch square view area. I use a variety of lighting and backdrops which really don't appear in the images because they are so out of focus, but they contribute to the color fields and blending results. The images are processed in PhotoShop, but generally only to fix levels, contrast and white balance. Colors are not highly manipulated, I tried to preserve the original tones to allow the depth of field to do the blending.

Images and interpretation

For the project, I selected images based on a single subject category: house-painting brushes. The paint residue and deformations push out some of the bristles, creating some of the flying effects. I am not interested in depicting the brushes in any realistic sense; but rather using them as a palette on which to paint. I have also thought of the brush as a kind of Mandelbrot set that can be explored at different levels of magnifications and coloring schemes.

I don't insist on any specific interpretations of these images. To me, the images portray a dream space. In this respect they are surrealistic. (Also, they owe a lot to accident.) Titles are based on my immediate reactions to the image, but the titles are mainly to identify the images and group similar images together. You may find that an image gives a completely different impression or connotation. That is perfectly fine with me.

Favorite Photos (of mine)

Utata Member Page for Dean Askin