Mark Steinmetz’s photographs capture moments of reverie amidst the flow of the everyday. His subject matter is the sort of quietly compelling detail that would normally go unnoticed – nuances of expression and gesture and setting, circumstances that unfold without drama, revealing something more enduring and profound.
His sensibility has been described as quintessentially American, but Steinmetz’s influences also include the more literary approach of the European tradition. The sharp eye of the street photographer is clearly at work in his pictures. But they also share the stillness and slight melancholy of historical documents, containing few indications of the exact time or place in which they were made.
Understated and serene, Steinmetz’s images give up their meaning gradually. Black-and-white film – capable of rendering light and atmosphere in an almost tactile way – is his medium of choice. The monochrome image requires a slower gaze, one that leaves space for the imagination to work. Similarly, Steinmetz is also drawn to the hands-on process of darkroom printing, and to the introspective form of the book.
Steinmetz has described his approach as archaeological – attuned to the ambience of the locations he shoots in, to shifts in light, to incremental changes in the atmosphere, and to the fluid nature of time itself. His deep connection to his own local landscape can be felt in the sense of familiarity that runs through all of his work. The resulting images are intimate without being invasive, drawing a delicate kind of grace out of the most ordinary settings.
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