“FOCUS ON BEAUTY” EXHIBIT

Atherton-based fine art photographer Marc Silber’s newest exhibition, “Focusing on Beauty,” opened with a reception at the Richard Sumner Gallery in Palo Alto on Feb. 2. The show, featuring 40 years of classic black-and-white photographs, color photographs and recent prints, attracted longtime friends, collectors and several of Silber’s students.

At the reception, Silber had the chance to tell the stories behind many of his pieces and gave an impromptu photography lesson.

Guests at the reception enjoyed viewing the prints, chatting with the artist and meeting gallery owner Mahmut Keskekci, who framed the artist’s newest color prints. The custom-designed frames mirror details in the abstract color in motion photographs.

A lifelong photographer, Silber first experienced work in a darkroom when he attended the Peninsula School in Menlo Park. He likes to tell the story about the silhouette pictured on his business card, which depicts fellow students from his eighth-grade class captured in a midair jump from a sand dune during a class field trip.

During his spontaneous photography lesson, he said, “So much of photography is about geometry.” Silber looks for juxtapositions and contrast in patterns.

“The fun of photography is to look for a shift in the scene,” he said. A perfect example is his first printed still life that dates back to his Peninsula School days, in which he rotated the camera and composed a shot of chairs stacked at various angles.

The exhibition continues through March at the Richard Sumner Gallery at 628 Emerson St. in downtown Palo Alto.

Colors and patterns can be wherever you find them: trees, grass, sky, or in this case, snowboards.

one red candle…

We have a house designed by Ellis Jacobs, understudy of Frank Lloyd Wright, with lots of angles…

leaves

As I mentioned earlier, we have a sparkling line up of shows on the horizon for Photowalking 2008. We’re now set to video Annie Leibovitz (we share mentions in Photoicon) at the end of the month walking with her through her show at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, stay tuned for this unique experience to hear from a true legend…

What we’re going for is a series of the greats to download some of their knowledge and tools, as well as look through their eyes (or as close as we can get in the case of their children/grandchildren.)

This show has a great deal of potential for recognition and education in the art of photography: I see this as a parallel to the movement to make photography a fine art that was pulled off by Adams, Weston, Minor White, etc in the 30s and 40s. My aim is to teach the basics of photography from the masters themselves, and also get more insight into their work.

Photography is a life-long learning process…hope we can help you along with your journey.

I took this shot a few minutes ago: sun coming through my huge redwood trees. As it’s election day, we have hope of breaking the dark spell we’ve been under for the last 7 years.

The show Focus on Beauty will be up into March so please drop by Richard Sumner Gallery, 628 Emerson St Palo Alto 10AM-5PM Monday through Saturday. Click for more details

Naturally at an opening I don’t get to take too many shots but here’s one of my son Bear and his girlfriend Monica:

Thanks to all those who dropped by for the opening. I love to get the chance to talk, get your feedback and see how people respond to my photos. Another photographer mentioned this to me once: One of the best parts of doing a show is to see how people respond, what they spark on and don’t–it’s like a live survey. Not that I’m changing what I shoot but it does help to get the feedback in the whole process. Ansel Adams taught to “visualize” the photograph from the moment of first seeing the shot all the way through to the finnished print, or in this case, being framed, on the wall and seen by others. Every artist needs to get that response one way or another to know if they’re on the the right track. (I will still love certain shots that I take even if they go unnoticed.)

So drop by and get some yogurt next door too (see Scoble’s entry below) you’ll be happy you did, trust me.

The entrepreneurial neighborhood of Palo Alto

Something is in the water in the neighborhood surrounding Emerson Street in Palo Alto. View map of neighborhood.

This is the neighborhood that’s brought us Google. Paypal. Facebook. HP. Java. BarCamp. Among other things.

But the entrepreneurialism doesn’t end with the big tech names. Gordon Biersch, a popular chain of microbreweries, started on this street.

I first learned about some of the entrepreneurial activity happening in the shadows of bigger companies back when I first took my car to a little garage in this neighborhood back in the early 1990s. If you visit Ole’s Car Shop you’ll meet Ole Christensen. This is no ordinary mechanic. He was so sick of the management systems available to car mechanics that he wrote his own in Microsoft Access and Visual Basic.

He’s not the only guy who has a college degree that’s coming up with new ways to run small businesses in this neighborhood.

On Thursday I went roaming around the neighborhood looking for other entrepreneurial stories.

I met up with Mahmut Keskekci. He’s worked in a small retail store, Richard Sumner Gallery, in this neighborhood for 23 years. He moved here from Turkey and has a degree in Electrical Engineering. What does he do now?

He frames Silicon Valley’s most expensive artwork at the shop he now owns, Richard Sumner Gallery. Just a couple of weeks ago he had a million-dollar Picaso in his shop. Today he’s hosting professional photographer Marc Silber, blog, who swears by Mahmut’s work.

I met up with Mahmut and Marc in the shop and videoed them. Here’s Marc talking about his photography and why he loves Mahmut’s work. Mahmut told me he does framing for the local Stanford University hospital, and local museums, among others. The video gets a little choppy, cause I’m using my cell phone but you get an idea of Mahmut’s philosophy. I restarted the video and we continue the discussion of Marc’s photography and Mahmut’s framing work.

This afternoon if you drop by the gallery you’ll meet both Marc and Mahmut at 3 p.m. for the opening of Marc’s exhibition.

Anyway, more photos from my walk around the neighborhood are on my Flickr feed along with some snaps I made of Larry Lessig. Maybe I’ll see you over at the yogurt shop this afternoon. Who knows what kind of entrepreneur you’ll run into there!