Photographer's Websites Reviewed

Dan Nelken

Who

Dan Nelken is a commercial photographer from New York City.

The Photographs

There are four photo essays to be found here, "I'm Not Angry Project," "Till The Cows Come Home," "The Bathtub Series" and "Industrial Memories." All images are medium format. "The Bathtub Series" is in black & white, the other three are in color.

"I'm Not Angry Project" is a series of eleven paired head shots of angry faces. Ten of the pairs are of the same person. To be perfectly honest, I'm not quite sure how to react to these. Some images appear to be serious portrait studies. Carol for instance (the strongest of this group), looks like a sincerely unhappy person. Someone I would not mess with. She does have an attractive face, in a Cruellea de Ville sort of way, so I wouldn't cross the street if I saw her coming, but still . . . Steve & Susan look like a couple in trouble, unsure of themselves and each other. But many of the others, such as Carl and Ada, appear to be little more than stereotypes. Not sure if these are outtakes from a commercial shoot, or another example of Nelken's sense of humor.

"Til the Cows Come Home: County Fair Projects" is a marvelous collection of photographs taken at county fairs in upstate New York. The reproductions of the website simply do not do them justice. The originals that were on exhibition last summer in Vermont were exquisite 30" x 30" prints that filled the gallery space. The display, with many of the images double and tripled hung, made me feel that I was surrounded not by photographs but by the actual people in them.

The county fairs have a long and rich tradition of honoring New Yorks agricultural history. As a long time resident of Washington County, New York I can attest to Nelken's honest portrayal of this tradition. This collection of 19 photographs contains no weak links. Nothing but one strong image after another. This essay is primarily casually posed portraits of exhibitors and their animals. Among the strongest photographs are Three Days Old, a young girl with a new born chick resting precariously on her hand; Norie With Her Favorite Hen, a young girl staring into the lens while holding a large chicken whose feathers are the same color as her hair; Anticipation, an unshaven man in his 20's, slouched in his car, waiting to take part in a Demolition Derby; and A Contender, a partially shorn sheep.

"The Bathtub Series" is series of 12 black and white portraits, using various bathtubs as the setting. In lesser hands, restricting one self to such a private space and unusual backdrop, may have resulted in work that was both contrived and cute, the portraits here are uniformly strong and for the most part, unique. The opening image, Looking is of a young girl, lifting her head slightly above the top of a clawfoot tub. The camera lens is level with the top, and hence we find her staring directly at us. Is she playing hide and seek, or is she too bashful to be photographed? One recurring element throughout this essay is the interplay between water and daylight's reflection upon it.

In Before we stare directly down at the top half of a woman. The left half of the photograph is in shadow, with sunlight pouring directly upon her partially submerged face, with reflected light patterns creating an aura to her right. Her right hand is resting on the tubs side, giving herself balance in the water, while her left hand is palm upwards towards the lens, in a state of openness or surrender. Her right breast is partially obscured by the reflections while her left breast is fully visible, including a long horizontal scar. Running up and down the center of her chest are light reflections that resemble scars. This hauntingly beautiful portrait is timeless; while the medium is modern, the image is evocative of the Italian Renaissance.

Nelkin's sense of humor is never lost for long. Bubbles could easily be a snapshot of one of our children, if it weren't for the fact that the face rising above the water is that of a bearded, middle-aged man. Brian Smiling is anything but smiling, as he rests fully submerged, save his nostrils, white shirt and tie included. Back Again is the weakest photograph here, but then I've never been a connoisseur of hairy male torsos.

"Industrial Memories" is a series of 12 random color images whose primary thread is geometric shapes. The settings range from purely industrial to a museum gallery. The opening photograph, Lima By The Sea, is a ground level view of a deserted, outdoor basketball playground. The foreground is dirt and rocks. Our viewpoint is such that we are looking up at the courts, we cannot see any details of the playing surface. Marching across the unseen surface are six hoops, anchored to the ground by slender, rusted metal poles. They bear a close resemblance to a herd of Preying Manti.

There are some really funny images here. Venice In Bloom is a vignette of a window, with 3 terra cotta flower pots resting on the outside ledge. Other than one bloom, the flowers are hidden by two hand towels, pinned to a clothes line. The towels, of course, have brightly painted flowers on them. Spanish Hair Cut is a grouping of trees, all bunched together, and shorn at the same height. In Lost & Found we find ourselves staring at the back of a man, staring at a painting in a museum. The partially bald man is viewing a painting of a nude woman, reclining on a white sheet. If one could gently remove the large mound of pubic hair from the painting, it would perfectly fill in the man's bald spot.

The Site

http://www.dannelken.com/

This site has a clean, white design. Other than the C.V., every page can be viewed without any scrolling. Very user friendly.

A 1 pixel grey square box frames the home page, a very nice touch, echoing his use of a medium format camera. Within it is a flash-driven series of photographs; appearing in four locations. The main navigational page contains four photographs, with the name of the relevant essay beneath. The same 1 pixel grey box frames the page, as well as the rest of the pages on the site, with small navigational arrows beneath the photographs. A clean, white design that displays his work in an elegant manner.

One photograph, Safety First from "Industrial Memories", is an example of the difficulties of translating still photographs to the web. In this image, we see a number of posters and handbills fixed to a grimy interior wall. In the image presented here, the posters are too small to read and we're left with a dark image of unknown meaning. The original however, which I saw on exhibition last summer, is large enough to view the posters in detail. They are generic safety posters, found in factories all over America. Staring at them, and the gritty brick wall, brought back memories of time spent in a New Jersey factory 30 years ago. I was so taken by one of the ones management hung in the lunchroom that I brought it home with me. On it are two archeologists staring into an empty crypt. Blazoned above them are the words, "Avoid Absenteeism."

Discovery

I first came across his work at an exhibition of his essay "Til The Cows Come Home" at Indian Hill Gallery in Rupert Vermont.