Edition Announcement #245 - Daniel Cheek

Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Florida by Daniel Cheek
8"x10" ($20) | 11"x14" ($50) | 16"x20" ($200) | 24"x30" ($1000)

Wintery greetings collectors! It's Sara, writing from a very snowy New York. School has been canceled and subway traffic slowed, reminders that we're still subject to the whims of nature, despite our best attempts to be sheltered from it. Blanketed in a most flattering quilt of white, the city is rendered in grayscale, and like today's edition, is at its most peaceful and quiet.

It couldn't be a better day to introduce you to the photography of 2009 First Edition Hot Shot Daniel Cheek. In his photographs, Daniel illustrates his belief that "few people in the modern age have experienced unadulterated nature," and admits, "I know I have not." The spaces he photographs are often along the perimeter of places that might be described as wild — marked by fences, benches and paths, or in the case of Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Florida, moderated by glass and plaster.

With his 8x10-inch camera, Daniel exaggerates this contrived distance through ground glass. The format that he uses requires him to shoot from stable ground, on fair and friendly terrain. Using a large-format camera is a slow, calculated endeavor, not unlike that of writing. Writing, reading, and photographing are all in their own ways, opportunities to examine an experience from a distance, and from this distance, we're sometimes better able to understand what we see and feel.

This morning, as I was thinking about writing this newsletter, I went running in the storm. I'm training for a marathon but this time, headed out with more of a sense of adventure than duty. The streets and sidewalks were still snowy, yet untarnished by tires and exhaust — fast reminders of just how adulterated NYC is. Bewildered by all the wonderful whiteness, there were moments when I began to think this wasn't such a good idea.

Until a snowplow met me halfway coming down the ramp to the Williamsburg Bridge, I was sliding half a step backwards for every one forwards. As I ventured farther over the East River, the wind flung blinding bits of ice into my eyes and sucked the snot out of my nose and wrapped it around the side of my face. Lovely, no? But in all this, there was something strangely comforting in thinking about Daniel's way of photographing and its relationship to writing, reading — and for me, on this day, running.

In the midst of this visceral experience of Brooklyn, albeit abated by concrete, buildings, and bridge, I was keenly aware of Daniel's sense of our separation from it all and realized that he was right and that that might not be such a bad thing. There is value in creating space to look and think from a distance and more so, in highlighting that this is what we're doing. Like the chairs that dot horizons in paintings by Hopper, the empty rockers at Rookery Bay serve to remind us that in these endeavors, we shouldn't separate ourselves from each other, too. In other words, if you're in the snowbound East like we are, rustle up your nearest and dearest and go make some snowmen.

And, when the roads clear, head to Massachusetts. Daniel's work is currently on view in America Now at the Montserrat College of Art Gallery in Beverly, MA. You'll find Daniel's work on the walls along with an allstar lineup of photographers: Ben Huff, former JBG intern and publisher/editor of Lay Flat, Shane Lavalette, Laura McPhee, Alec Soth and Zoe Strauss.

Jen will be back tomorrow to introduce a colorful counterpoint to today's edition.

More black and white images on 20x200: