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24/3/2003

The Renewed Burden of Photography

Zeitgeist Gallery, Cambridge

Telling the Truth
A Two-Man Show of Photographs by Howard Dinin and Steve Lipsey
Archival Digital Prints in large and small format

In a field of the lush intensely green ground cover of a New York City park, a man and his woman sit almost forgotten in a corner of the frame. He chats as his hand lightly and matter-of-factly caresses her.

In a formal expanse of broad white margins three sizeable images butt one another tightly - in the background of a vivid evening landscape two women are in deep conversation, and silvery magenta sardines, ten times life-size, snuggle in a herring bone pattern, and stalks of summer wheat, a riot of light tans and greens, are home to a precisely centered almost imperceptible lady bug. On top of this assemblage, in elegant italic type, the words, "If this is love, then why have I fought it?"

Two veteran practitioners of photography, Howard Dinin and Steve Lipsey have chosen a hard course in the pursuit of art. Devotees of what is called straight photography, they currently are producing work that, even when using digital tools, most people will recognize as classic. It is, but with a twist.

Lipsey is a self-described "street photographer," in the style of Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander, his teachers. He presents his photographs in montages of separately framed pictures from a locale (as disparate as New York, Glasgow, the Virgin Islands, and Concord, MA) that capture the nature of a place as well as the individual stories within it. By way of explanation for what is going on in these vivid portraits of real people and tiny dramas of real life, Lipsey quotes Winogrand, who always said, "'It's in the picture - Look! - it's in the picture!'" to explain his own work.

Dinin's latest effort produces sizeable triptychs. Each photo could stand on its own. Together, with the addition of a song or aria lyric as a title, they are compelling, vexing, evocative, and demand of the viewer that he or she create a story out of the elements, something that will explain why these elements are yoked so tightly. He is steadfastly mum when asked to explain the work, saying, that job is the viewer's - and each viewer will have his own story as a result. Dinin's work, like Lipsey's, is unposed, unmanipulated, unpretentious, yet uncannily rich with the nuances of truth.

With significant care, each of these men creates miniature worlds that invite the viewer to return again and again to their images: to explore every detail of scenes that somehow capture far more than most people would have observed. Each has worked at his craft for decades, yet, in the process, they have succumbed to none of the tricks of the digital technology they now use to produce their work.

Photography has always been hounded by twin demands: to capture reality accurately, yet to plunge beneath the surface of that reality to discover truth. We place trust in the record because of the "scientific" nature of the medium. However, in these days of digital trickery, it has become all too easy to commit mischief by altering the "truth" of an image - by adding or taking away facts. Lipsey and Dinin refuse to play such tricks. Rather, they exploit the proven postures of art: ambiguity, irony, juxtaposition, and the brilliant human appeal of contrasts of color and light, stillness and motion, focus and softness. Their work is a kind of forensic record of the presence of all these in ordinary life, if we only bothered to look.
An exhibition of their latest work currently is on view at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Inman Square, Cambridge MA.

(Bios) Steve Lipsey has been photographing seriously ever since he was Photo Editor of "Thursday", a left-wing newspaper at M.I.T. in the 60's. His stints in the software industry afforded him the luxury to travel to exotic photo locations, such as Tokyo, London, Paris, St. John, San Francisco and Newark. Lipsey has studied with Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander and has shown his work at FotoGallery (NY), Nucleo Eccletico Gallery (Boston), among others. His work is also held in numerous private collections. When not shooting pictures, Lipsey is a rock and roll guitarist.

Howard Dinin grew up in the Bronx, where he first wielded a camera on a fifth grade field trip to City Island. He has been shooting ever since. After finishing his studies at Boston University, Bryn Mawr College Graduate School and Harvard University, Dinin became creative director at several Boston ad agencies, as well as editor of three Boston-based magazines. He interspersed part-time appointments at Colby-Sawyer College and Boston University teaching English, marketing, advertising, and graphic design with assignments as a strategist and account supervisor at two fast-growing Boston agencies. Dinin has exhibited throughout the Boston-area, including at Boston University, the WGBH Gallery and the Emerson Umbrella Center for the Arts. He has won numerous awards for his photography, his poetry, and his creative work in advertising. When not shooting pictures, Dinin cooks.

Image: a work by Steve Lipsey

When:
* Tuesday-Sunday, March 25 - April 13; gallery hours, including exhibit and sale of photographs and other artifacts, Tues.-Sun., 1-7 pm.
* Opening reception, Thursday, March 27, 6-10 pm; exhibit, witty repartee, music, and more.

Where:
Zeitgeist Gallery, 1353 Cambridge St., Inman Sq., Cambridge.
For information log on to the website or call 617-876-6060

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