The curved walls of the stairwell at the John Jermain Memorial Library may not seem the most likely of places for an art exhibit, but it’s one that Sag Harbor photographer Daniel Gonzalez has come to love — and it does bring to mind another great circular art gallery.
“It’s a mini-Guggenheim,” grins Gonzalez.
This weekend, Gonzalez’s second photo exhibit — in as many years — goes on view in the library’s “gallery in the round.” Entitled simply “Long Beach,” the show features 17 photographs taken by Gonzalez on Sag Harbor’s local stretch of sand.
While there are people who can come and go along a well traveled patch of road countless times without ever noticing the changing subtleties, Gonzalez isn’t one of them. For him, Long Beach is a vista that is constantly changing and every time he looks through his lens, he finds something new. He has spent the last couple years photographing Long Beach and is always surprised by what he comes home with.Â
“You don’t know what you’re going to come up with,” says Gonzalez. “You look through the lens see one thing and when you blow it up, it’s like, ‘Whoa!’ Some are totally different.”
Some mornings, Gonzalez looks out the window and immediately knows a trip to Long Beach is in the offing.
“Yesterday was one of those days, with the steam rising off the ground,” notes Gonzalez. “Changes of weather are always good.”Â
Though each photograph is a document of a single specific place, like a snow flake, no two are the same. The mood captured through the vagaries of time and atmosphere is dramatic and it’s what has driven Gonzalez to revisit this particular subject over and over again.
“Each one is a different time of day and different weather,” says Gonzalez. “It’s all about light — and Long Island is all about light. I’ve been to many places and don’t see the light like it is here. It has to do with the weather and where we’re located.”
“I love when I can go to the same place and it looks totally different — like a different planet,” he adds. “That’s what light does and how it makes it different.”
Also important is the ability to let the mind take in that which the eye takes for granted. After years of working as a professional photographer, Gonzalez has learned to slow down, take his time and really observe what is going on around him — noticing what is unique, stunning or simply awe inspiring.
“To me it’s really interesting,” he says. “So many times I’m so busy with work, you become a machine. But you need to just take the time and do it.”
Also unique is the printing process Gonzalez used for this series, which was shot with a square format digital Hasselblad camera. Gonzalez then printed the images on canvas and stretched them over a wooden frame, which he finds lends a painterly quality to the work.Â
“I’ve been doing photographs on canvas lately,” he says. “The first time I had done it, I hired someone up island to do it. Then I decided, ‘I can do that.’”
Gonzalez now has his own large format printer in his studio and can produce his own photographs on canvas. The finished product is beautiful, but, he cautions, the process is not as easy as it looks.Â
“Most people think you put it in there and it comes out and its done,” says Gonzalez pointing to the printer. “It [the canvas] comes on a big roll and you feed it through and hope it doesn’t print with lines or misprints. Then you have to cover it with a UV protection. You give it two coats and let it dry 24 hours. Then I stretch it. Then you’ve got to get it straight — it’s like anything else, it takes practice.”
Even with the right equipment, Gonzalez notes that it’s expensive to create photographic prints on canvas. But just framing a regular photograph these days can cost even more he adds.Â
“And certain images look great on canvas,” he says. “Work that’s abstract lends itself well to canvas —anything with a toothy grain. I also love horizontal lines and in this group of photographs, the horizon is consistent throughout.”
Though he has really taken to landscape and nature photography now that he is living on the East End, Gonzalez admits that he misses photographing people — something he loved doing when he spent more time in the city.
“I totally miss shooting street photography,” admits Gonzalez. “Being able to walk out on the street and confront people in their element.”
When photographing people, Gonzalez makes it a policy to engage his prospective subjects in conversation prior to taking their pictures. It’s a lesson he had to learn the hard way.
“There was a heavy set man with a Chihuahua licking his face, and I took his picture without asking,” says Gonzalez. “He about killed me.”Â
“From that point on I always asked,” says Gonzalez who has found that he ends up getting a lot more from his subjects when he engages them in conversation before snapping away.
“Diane Arbus did the same thing,” says Gonzalez, referring to the famed portrait photographer. “She would take the time to get to know them and go back over and over. That’s how she was able to get them [her subjects] to open up to the camera.”
What’s true of people Gonzalez has found to be true of buildings and beaches as well.
“You have to be that way to get the image. When shooting architecture too,” he says. “You have to get acclimated to the space, the people who own it. That way you get a good picture. You got to connect to the spirit.”
Which is why Gonzalez loves the John Jermain Memorial Library. It’s a space with vital energy and a profound sense of history and he would hate to see a day when it is no longer there for the public.
“I’ve made a push for art there. What a shame it would be to not use the space,” he says. “But we’ve got to fix the roof though, so it won’t leak on the art.”
“Long Beach” a photographic exhibit by Daniel Gonzalez is on view at the John Jermain Memorial Library (201 Main Street, Sag Harbor, 725-0049) until April 30, 2009. The opening for the show is Saturday, April 4 from 2 to 4 p.m.
Above: A photo of Long Beach, Sag Harbor by Daniel Gonzalez
