solitude in .black tie
Looong time ago I spent a fantastic spring/summer in the US of A. I was living in Finland at the time and as a foreigner in Finland, very bluntly put, you need three things in order to get a job and/or be taken serious in what you’re doing:
1) speak (near) fluent Finnish
2) a network
3) a degree in the services you’re offering
Photography education
So… even if I had been photographing already for a good 20 years by that time, I was entirely self-taught without any real degree. Thus, point 3) kind of obligated me to get a degree in photography. Did some research, and I ended up in Missoula, Montana, for an intensive, 3-months course in photography with the Rocky Mountain School of Photography.
Some of the Best! Months! Of! My! Life! I met a whole lot of super cool new people (that’s coming from an introvert, mind you!), and that friend I keep on mentioning here, whom I apparently visit all the time (and should again, because it’s been WAY TOO LONG!), has remained very close to my heart. We shot a mad amount of photos, had SO much fun along the way. Oh, and there were some photography courses as well, of course.
As a graduation project we had to come up with an exhibition of photographs, (post-)processed as we wanted and printed and/or framed as we saw fit for the photos we wanted to exhibit. It would have to be accompanied by an Artist’s Statement.
Artist’s Statement
I struggled for the longest time with what I wanted/could do. I had plenty of material, but I didn’t “just” want a series of macro shots. Or a series of landscapes or a series of rodeos. Then I was fiddling a bit with converting to black and white, and I got the idea of “Solitude in Black Tie”.
Reading that Artist’s Statement back now, I kinda cringe (I added it here for people who fancy a good cringe). It seems incoherent nonsense to me now. They are nice words, and their meaning still ring true, stand-alone, but in combination with the imagery it makes no sense to me anymore now.
I also think that my teacher got hooked on the Title more so than to the quality of the images.
The Artwork
The featured image of this post is (a crop of) what I wandered off to. I clung to very characteristic trees in the beginning and this image caught me, because of that single leaf hanging there, portraying a perfect Solitude. Along the way I slowly ventured away from solely trees, and focusing more on the “Solitude”.
The original three images I still have hanging in my office. They have special importance to me, even if for an exhibition I probably wouldn’t pick these anymore.
“Solitude in Black Tie” has seen 3 different exhibition spaces, though. It’s not one of the many ideas that remained stuck in my head.
A larger selection of images from this series can be found in the Fine Art section here: Solitude in Black Tie. They can be ordered as fine art prints as single frames or in sets of 2 or 3 of your choice.
Contact me for more information and prices.
PS… It pained my heart to hear that the Rocky Mountain School of Photography is no more. After 35 years they closed their doors in 2024.