Noted Photographer Scott Frances Is Guest Curator of The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s Instagram Feed, December 14-18
Widely published, New York City-based photographer Scott Frances’ work has always been rooted in architecture and the decorative arts. His latest book, One Place, Two Decades, is a collaboration with landscape architect Douglas Reed and architect Salvatore La Rosa about a private residence on Hither Lane in East Hampton, New York. The two designers have worked on the project for twenty years and Frances has photographed the property throughout that time. Frances says of the book’s dozens of images: “Everything we see in a photograph is framed. The edge of the picture dictates the composition within, and hides what exists outside of it. The landscape frames the architecture as the architecture frames the landscape. My desire was that these photographs would illuminate, if not magnify, the harmony between these arts.”
Long-term projects are not unusual for Frances, who has been documenting the work of architect Richard Meier for more than 30 years. Frances’ photography reflects his studies in journalism and art history at Northwestern University, as well as an upbringing by art-oriented parents (his father was a creative director at an advertising agency and his mother was an editor for decorating magazines). As he wrote in One Place Two Decades, “My work is most often about guiding the viewer’s eye as far as possible into the space I am shooting. I am not looking at a space, I am in a space.”
Of his evolution as an artist and of his process he says: “I have become more interested in the atmosphere of the spaces I shoot, certainly their volume and quality of the available light, but also the touch, sound and smell, the mood. I never supplement the lighting, instead I shoot multiple exposures, and in Photoshop I layer these exposures together to render an image that best captures the sensory experiences of being in the environment. My journalistic instinct is to clearly and concisely tell a story. The compositions and narrative themes in my work speak to recurrent threads found throughout art history.”
As guest curator for TCLF’s Instagram page, Frances’ postings will focus on New York’s iconic Central Park, fountains, New York Harbor, industrial wasteland, highways, and the Highline. No doubt this will be a beautiful, evocative, and eloquent series. And, be sure to visit his website: http://scottfrances.com.