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Working as a theatrical lighting designer and director for over twenty-five years, Larry's photography has been largely avocational; mostly used in his own design portfolio, and for promotional and production pictures. His work with stage lighting gives him a greater understanding and a unique vision for his artistic photography. He has been active as a fine art photographer for over twenty years.
His artistic photography work is mostly in landscapes, scenic, nature, still life, buildings, nautical themes, plus includes abstract figure studies and aerial work. Larry's work is exhibited in galleries throughout Northwest Indiana and Suburban Chicago plus appears in several private collections, and appeared in several regional calendars. "Creative photography is more than making a simple visual recording, it involves the innovative artistry and vision of a photographer, who manipulates the given visual elements in order to both preserve and represent the subject while creating New Perspectives. I view my artistic photography as more than merely making a visual recording of existing subjects, but to capture both obvious and subtle visions of the subject. A photograph actually freezes a moment in time, forever preserving an image of people, places, things, or events, which then can be revisited again and again, thus creating an existence of its very own. A creative image is both the product of the subject and the artist, whose discriminating perception seeks to evoke those more intangible and profound impressions of intimacy and mood. The viewer completes this triad (subject, artist, and viewer) by hopefully realizing a successful artistic communication. In both my color and monochromatic photography, understanding light is the key to any successful image. While color photography currently has less artistic acceptance, it forms a major portion of my scenic and nature work. Color is an important compositional element, tied more directly to mood than any other visual element. Modern photography can create a full palate and range of natural colors, and manipulating this natural color to enhance or intensify the mood represents an important stylistic portion of my work. When I choose monochrome over color, it is to heighten the focus on shape, form, texture, pattern, and tonality, by removing color as a visual element. By its inherent nature, a black & white image evokes a different and more ethereal emotional response to the subject. The postcard style images are consciously part of my scenic visual style. Compressing the visual elements in order to achieve a flattened perspective of the subject is a strong characteristic of my scenic images. Isolating a subject from the background in order to reveal and capture details, which may be otherwise overlooked by a casual observer, is an important style element of my photography. Especially used in my close-up macro work, I like to focus attention on the minute details of the subject. An artist's style should not be static, but consistently open to alternate visions." - Larry A Brechner Larry A Brechner's website is at www.brech.com/npIndex.html |