THE GALLERY

Jessica Whalen Haverstick
9 Degrees of Longitude
February 1 – March 31, 2010

Travel has been a great source of inspiration in my photography. Getting out of familiar surroundings, removing myself from my “comfort zone”, always seems to help see things with a fresh eye and get the creative juices flowing. I have been very fortunate to have had unforgettable travel experiences.

While the underlying theme of this exhibit is “travel”, these are not images of landmarks or tourist attractions (better left to postcards, I think). Rather, my joy in travel photography is the “happy accident” or being in the right place at just the right time. Every image included here is my personal and intuitive reaction to a color, a texture, a movement, lighting or a sense of place. My work is not particularly technical but more of an emotional (and, hopefully, considered) reaction to what I see. My goal is for the viewer to “stand in my shoes”, to feel what I felt at the moment, to share my reaction and mood.

When trying to narrow the focus of this exhibit, I tried to find some common thread that might run through some of my photographs. My photographs covered locations on five continents. Looking at a world map, it occurred to me that 9 cities I had visited were all within a very small slice of the world—there were 9 cities, with 9 longitudinal coordinates—and, they were all within 9 ? of longitude from the Prime Meridian “starting point”, at 0?. Culturally, historically, visually very different places—yet, geographically, close neighbors.

All of the photographs in this exhibit are digital and were taken in the past four years. Most have been managed in Photoshop to enhance the artistry of the image. I feel that a velvet fine art paper lends itself to the majority of my work and I have printed most of these pictures on this paper, as ultrachrome pigment prints. Enjoy the exhibit! I would love to receive any reactions and comments. Please contact me at my email address: jhstix@aol.com

For additional information, contact Jennifer Ayres, Exhibitions Coordinator, at jayres@artcenternj.org

The Summit Free Public Library
75 Maple Street, Summit, NJ 07901
PH: (908)273-0350, Fax: (908)273-0031
www.summitlibrary.com