Photo Centre Sets 'Painting With Light'

A Study in Blue, by Matt Block

(PRESS RELEASE)_(West Palm Beach, FL – November 20, 2020) Following the conclusion of its 24th Annual Members’ Show on November 28, Fatima NeJame, president and chief executive officer of the world renowned Palm Beach Photographic Centre (PBPC), today announced that its next major exhibition will feature stunning visuals by the award-winning, Miami-based photographer Matt Stock.
 
PAINTING WITH LIGHT
Hyper-Realistic Photographs by Matt Stock
December 17 to January 30, 2021
Virtual Opening on December 16, 6 to 8 pm
 
“Matt Stock’s area of expertise is creating hyper-realistic nighttime photographs in the most inhospitable and remote locations imaginable with a technique he describes as ‘painting with light.’ With this technique, Stock and his team meticulously illuminates a scene in intimate ways on location: often leaf by leaf and root by root,” said NeJame.
 
Using light sources ranging from the Milky Way and full moon to specialized lighting tools through the course of many hours and dozens of individual exposures, the photographer works in the dead of night and brings light into the darkness. This illuminating process can also be thought of as a subtractive process in the same way that a sculptor subtracts portions of a block of marble to reveal the artwork within.
 
“While on set, I think not about where I am adding light to, but rather where I am chipping away at the shadows,” explained Stock. “After these dozens of exposures are recorded, I then return to my digital studio where I take elements from each of these exposures and weave them together to create a single luminous composition. Some photographs can only happen once a year, some even less frequently.”
 
“For the past three years I have been bitten, stung, infected, and more in pursuit of the most complex photographic project of my career: Abandoned Vehicles of the Everglades. This project explores the interaction between man and nature through nighttime environmental portraits of vehicles long abandoned throughout the Everglades ecosystem,” the photographer added. “In conjunction with Charles J. Kropke, the Everglades explorer and my partner on the project, I have photographed nearly 70 such vehicles ranging from Ford Model A’s to VW buses and even a drug plane. This project was awarded a Knight Arts Challenge Grant in 2019 and the works will be complied into a book to be released in 2021.” 

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