Juggled Lights (February, 2008)
Limited Edition 30”w x 20”h Dye-Sublimation Print on Aluminum in Series of 25
STEPHEN G. DONALDSON PHOTOGRAPHER Interview by Harryet Candee
Stephen G. Donaldson’s photography work consists of still-life, landscape, atmospheric, portraiture, performance, sports, commercial and fine art images. His awakening experience with photography (1995-1997), began with a gutsy now-or-never move, leaving behind a stable job, and taking flight for a life-changing photo-documenting journey expo, back-pack in tow. Stephen gainfully travelled with camera in hand, eye to lens, across six inhabited continents happily snapping away the entire way to some of the most remote corners of the world, and back. (From Timbuktu and back as they say?) Overflowing with his experiences from his journey, exploding with inspiration and drive, Stephen begins to look at the prospects of starting his freelance career in photography, in the Berkshires. Not end of story… Over the past two years, Stephen opens up the doors to GALLERY SGD in Great Barrington, where patrons of the arts can stop in to peruse through a large sampling of his life’s work including his beautiful atmospheric series titled, “Blue Light”. Harryet Candee: Stephen, tell us about your series, Blue Light. What camera, lens, technique is used to shoot these images? Stephen G. Donaldson: The “Blue Light” series is, in so many ways, a microcosm of my entire career. First, it evolved over a long time-period seventeen years passed between the time I shot the first image and the moment of the most-recently created one. Second, it’s not finished. Although I get fewer opportunities to get out in the field alone, and assignment-free, these days, I am always looking for opportunities to expand the collection. Third, the images were created with a variety of equipment beginning with a 35mm SLR film camera using slide film (the way I started my career when I photo-documented my trip round the world), and, most recently, with a full-frame (CMOS) professional digital SLR. From a technical perspective, you have to explore a number 40 • JULY 2022 THE ARTFUL MIND
of facets that go beyond equipment-based choices relating to exposure, and have much more to do with one’s creative intellect, to understand how the images were created. A significant quotient of the creative and technical underpinnings of each image is attributable to opportunism, and to the ability to respond quickly to unforeseen circumstances. For nine of the twelve images in “Blue Light” I was not in the location where they were created with any preconceived notion that I was going to encounter subject matter that would yield a single image that might prove compatible with the theme of “Blue Light”. For two of them I was actually performing my duties as house photographer for the renowned historic theater here in Great Barrington, The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, when I took advantage of very brief changes in lighting, and performance dynamics, to capture unique images. Every image has a sim-
ilar story that weaves together several components: fleeting and/or rapidly changing light conditions; compositional decisions that take the subject matter out of context and add an element of abstraction to the image; and intellectual agility to recognize an opportunity to quickly, and effectively, capture something unexpected in a visually compelling way. But, and here’s the catch, you really have to come to the gallery and see each image, and read each story, to fully grasp the nature of this exhibit. Have you photographed this venue before? Where did the thought to explore this begin? SGD: Once it galvanized as a concept in my mind, “Blue Light” was an entirely new type of creative endeavor for me. There’s a “Pulp Fiction”-like chronology to “Blue Light”. It begins somewhere near the middle, progresses forward,
