Solo Exhibit - Thirty Years of Salt Life

I am very pleased to announce my solo exhibit titled 'David Durbak - Thirty Years of Salt Life' which will open at the Ross Bagwell Art Gallery in Knoxville, Tennessee, on November 5, 2015. The exhibit is a retrospective of the past thirty years of my photography and features selected images from three of my Florida-based series; Floridays, Oceanids, and Source. It is difficult to believe that 30 years, three whole decades, have passed since my wife, Janice, first gifted me with a Hasselblad camera in order to start this wonderful career in photography. My, how the time has flown and what a crazy, fun-filled time it has been!

The images are all film-based and were created using various methods that match the intent and narrative of each series:
 - Floridays, based upon my memories of 'Old Florida' as well as the songs of troubadour Jimmy Buffett, were created using a simple, mostly out-of-focus Holga toy camera
 - Oceanids, based upon my love for Greek and Roman mythology (and my many hours of reading and re-reading the Iliad and Odyssey), and Source, based upon Florida's unique waters, were created using that now 30-year old Hasselblad camera
 - while the Floridays and Source series were printed using modern carbon piezography methods, the Oceanids images were printed using the antique cyanotype process.

My grateful thanks to all of my clients, family, friends, and supporters who have made the past thirty years possible, and my special thanks to you, Janice, for starting this whole whirlwind.

I hope you get a chance to visit the gallery and share my images and my memories.

A sample image from the Source series is shown above and I'll be posting images of the exhibit in the gallery soon.

Disruption of Design

Photography students are often told to search for patterns and repetition in creating images with good design, but sometimes, disruption of the patterns and/or the repetition can be just as interesting, as seen in this image of a fence that has fallen over on the lawn of a residence in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, Texas.

I do wonder how the mailman works around the precarious position of the mailbox.

Texas Flood

I was perusing some images from a few years back while listening to some old vinyl LPs, when I came across this image which just seemed to fit the lyrics of "Texas Flood" by Stevie Ray Vaughn.

"Texas Flood"

Well, there's floodin' down in Texas,
All of the telephone lines are down.
Well, there's floodin' down in Texas,
All of the telephone lines are down.
And, I've been tryin' to call my baby,
Lord, and I can't get a single sound...

The Ubiquitous Quonset Hut

At one time, the quonset hut was a ubiquitous sight across America, used in a multitude of purposes from storage facilities, to living quarters, to recording studios (like the famous Columbia Records' Studio B in Nashville, TN), and many more applications.

Based upon the design of the Nissen hut which was developed by the British during World War I, the 'quonset' in the name comes from Quonset Point at the Davisville Naval Construction Battalion Center in Davisville, Rhode Island, their first manufacture site. The first quonset huts were developed in 1941 for the U.S. Navy, which needed a lightweight, all-purpose building that could be shipped anywhere and built by virtually any unskilled laborer.

This particular quonset hut is located in Rice, Texas, and was captured on film just as the sun illuminated its gleaming metal side.

New Years Day 2014

I love photographing at Howard Park in Tarpon Springs and it's been the inspiration for many of my Floridays images throughout the years. Continuing a tradition of creating new images on New Years Day, I went out to see a very strange sight as the Gulf of Mexico was at the lowest tide I had ever seen. It was quite surreal, like an other-wordly view, as I was able to walk out for several hundred yards on what was usually the bottom of the sea. A strange start to a whole new year.

Source - An Ongoing Series

A series, like any body of work, is created over a period of time, which, in the case of Source, has been a period of almost ten years.

In this era of instant gratification, it is sometimes difficult to understand the concept of a project that is years in the making and development. We tend to look for the immediate and we so often forget the simple, yet extreme, satisfaction that comes with savoring the time and creating photographs, instead of merely taking snapshots.

Working with silver gelatin film allows one to slow down and actually think about the process of photography, yet you can't get bogged down in the technical, for the concept of the final image has to be constantly in the forefront of creation. It's never a simple matter of taking a bunch of snapshots and hoping you can find something worthwhile by messing around with some plug-ins or actions in some editing program or app. You have to be able to plan from the very beginning; camera selection, film selection, metering and exposure methodology, development process, and finally, the print process.

It's so very exciting to see the pre-visualization of the scene come to life in the final print.

'Light of Florida' Photo Exhibition

I am quite pleased that three photographs of mine have been selected for inclusion in the 'Light of Florida' - two images are from my 'River of Grass' series and one image is from my 'Heartland' series. 'Light of Florida' is a collaborative project created by the South Florida Chapter and the Central Florida Chapter of American Society of Media Photographers to produce a premium coffee table book, a promotional internet portfolio, and a print exhibit. The images feature people and places captured in the unique and varied natural light that makes Florida a great place to photograph. The print exhibit will have an opening in February, 2012, at KW Light Gallery, located on Duvall Street in Key West.


The image shown is titled 'Water Hyacinth' from the 'River of Grass' series.

To view the current 'River of Grass' images, please visit:

http://daviddurbak.com/river.html

Named as a Featured Artist on MyArtSpace

I am very pleased to announce that Catherine McCormack-Skiba, CEO, founder, and Creative Director at CatMacArt, has notified me that I have been selected as a Featured Artist on the MyArtSpace website during the month of July, 2011, and that the above image, 'Reclamation II' from the 'Impermanence' series, has been added to the front page media window. Since less than five percent of the entire group of artists listed on MyArtSpace are selected as Featured Artists, this is, indeed, a very nice honor.

To view the current front media page, please visit:

http://www.myartspace.com

To view my portfolio on MyArtSpace, please visit:

http://www.myartspace.com/daviddurbakgallery

'Impermanence' series now online with Saatchi

The images from my 'Impermanence' series, including 'Reclamation II' (pictured above) have now been uploaded via the Charles Saatchi online website. The series was executed during the time period 2007 through 2010, and is printed on gelatin silver, fibre-base, double weight, warmtone, semi-matte Ilford paper in an edition of seven, signed, titled, and dated on mount verso.

To view the 'Impermanence' images, please visit:

http://www.saatchionline.com/daviddurbak

'Nave and Altar' from the 'Impermanence' series

I am thrilled, to say the least, that a framed print of 'Nave and Altar' from my 'Impermanence' series has been chosen by the esteemed artist Enrique Martínez Celaya to reside in the collection at Whale & Star.

To view the entire 'Impermanence' series, please visit:

http://daviddurbak.com/impermanence.html

To view the artwork of Enrique Martínez Celaya, please visit:

http://whaleandstar.com/

Love Will Find A Way...

there was a time,

our love flowed like water,

nothing came between us,

two hearts beat as one...

and over the years,

we couldn't find the answers to the many questions

that were pulling us apart...

love will find a way...

and i believe in that today,

so, if i have to let you go, i will do it...

as far as i can see, you still belong right here with me,

love will find a way...