Skaters: Tintype Portraits of West Coast Skaters
December 8-9, 2017
Opening: Friday, Dec 8, 6pm – with live music
Jenny Sampson presents her unique, in-camera tintype portraits of West Coast Skaters that were made on location with her portable darkroom. Jenny traveled and photographed skaters over seven years in California, Oregon and Washington.
The two day pop-up exhibition will be open for viewing on Dec 8, beginning at at 6pm, and on Dec 9 from noon – 9pm.
Bret Anthony Johnston writes, “Jenny Sampson’s tintype photography is so stirring, so original, so necessary. With very few exceptions, the world has only seen skaters on their boards. A skater trying a trick. A skater being chased from a spot. A skater pushing or bombing a hill or falling again and again and again. We are in constant motion, and our patent aversion to stasis is one of the reasons why video has all but supplanted magazines and their quaint old-school photography. But even in photos, there is an implicit trajectory of movement. Skateboarding culture is exceptionally well-documented, and yet, the catalog of images is almost completely without portraiture, without still lifes to study and reflect upon—until now. In ghostly tones and stark, haunting relief, Sampson has pulled off the trick of tricks: She has persuaded random skaters to sit still while she photographs them with a staggeringly slow camera, and in doing so, she has captured, against all odds and with chilling nuance, the restless soul of skateboarding.”
