Robert Hirsch to Discuss New Uses of Color Materials In Photographic Art

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Noted photographer and photographic historian Robert Hirsch, director and curator of CEPA, the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art, will present an informal slide talk at the University at Buffalo next month.

His presentation, titled “Recent Color Photography,” will take place at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 23, in the Screening Room, 112 Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus. It will be free of charge and open to the public.

Hirsch will discuss recent work by several photographers working in color photo-based materials who incorporate traditional photographic methods into unusual contemporary forms or who work in unique ways with digital imaging, scanners and other technologies to produce color images. One example cited by Hirsch is a photographer/biologist who uses a photo scanner to visually “read” the images of laboratory animals as they run around on the scanner itself.

“Her work recalls the experiments done by some of the earliest photographers using different chemicals during the development process,” he said. “She’s experimenting in much the same way, but with electronic imaging technology.

In addition to his curatorial and photographic work, Hirsch is a writer and an historian. He is the author of two major textbooks, “Exploring Color Photography” and “Photographic Possibilities: The Expressive Use of Ideas, Materials and Processes.”

His work-in-progress, “Catching the Light: The Shaping Forces of Photography,” is a new text on the history of photography to be published by McGraw-Hill in association with the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester.

Additional information on CEPA, the artists associated with the center and with Hirsch’s talk can be found on the CEPA Web site at cepa.buffnet.net