The Infinite Depth of the Photograph

Tom McCann, Photography

February 22 – March 30, 2019

Frame Works is pleased to announce the exhibition The Infinite Depth of the Photograph featuring fine art photography by Tom McCann. The show will open at Frame Works, 5800 Merle Hay Road, Johnston, Iowa on Friday, February 22, 2019 and hang in the gallery until March 30, 2019.

Please join us for the opening reception on Friday, February 22 – 5:00pm to 7:00pm and meet Tom.

Artist’s Statement:

Photographer Tom McCann lives in Des Moines, Iowa.

Tom says:

“What I love most about photography is the chance to capture moments that are timeless. We may glance at an elderly man or woman on a street and not give them a second thought as we pass by. But take a photograph, an image, of that elder and what do we see? A story! The lines of the face, the twinkle of the eye, the whimsical expression . . . what can those tell us? What we see in that image—that nanosecond of time frozen by the camera—reveals a glimpse of their soul. We grasp that their life is reflected in the image of their face.

Or consider a landscape. When we observe it in the natural world, it is constantly changing; light, motion, and our perspective are in flux. But if we catch it and study it, we can go into the photograph. We pause and reflect. The stillness of a photograph can often show us more than a moving picture.

Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing it as meditation.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

What drew me to photography many years ago was the fact that so much information is available in a still image that we miss in the constant movement of life or in a video. It continues to attract me today and will for the rest of my life: finding the depth in the still photograph.

A photograph allows us to ponder a sliver of time, a fragment so short, that disappeared so quickly, that we missed as it passed by. We now have an image that illuminates what we were unable to isolate with our eyes, an image which we can now contemplate with our mind and soul.

To me, photography is an act of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place . . . I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.

Elliot Erwitt

When we study that instance in time, we detect a depth of existence and emotion that allow us to become lost in that stillness. The still image becomes infinite.

Photography, as a power medium of expression and communication, offers
an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.

Ansel Adams

This exhibition is a study of those moments, of people, places, and events that shape our lives and define our time.

In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.

Alfred Stieglitz

As a photographer, I seek the infinite depth of the photograph—capturing moments in time.”