About me...
We all look at the same world yet we all see it differently. A subtle shadow or shade of color is visible to one person, but not another. Our vision of our shared world is unique to each of us. The photograph has the ability to capture a moment of time, but what was seen by the photographer is not always what will be seen by others. Others regularly point out things in my work that I didn’t see when I took the picture or looked at it later.
I am a San Francisco Bay Area based photographer. Commonly called a street photographer, I use the photograph to express my view of our shared human experience and to open others to discovery. I’ve always loved the black and white image, but use color as well. I hope that you can share the world that I see and try to capture with images.
Jazz pianist Bill Evans said: “My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise. It’s easy to rediscover a part of yourself, but through art you can be shown a part of yourself you never knew existed. That’s the real mission of art. The artist has to find something within himself that’s universal and which he can put into terms that are communicable to other people. The magic of it is that art can communicate this to a person without his realizing it.”
Coming from a city, my vision tends to focus on people and the places where they live and work and play. It describes joy as well as hardship and tries to present both the complexity and simplicity of life.
My images of people are both posed and informal – the subject sometimes aware of the photograph, sometimes not. I try to use my cityscapes to present scenes that are overlooked by most of us as we live our day-to-day lives. While color presents the world as it is – in beauty and reality – I like to use black and white to strip away the extra information of color and reduce a person and a scene to their essential elements.
My artistic influences are many. Edward Steichen, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander and Arnold Neman have all made an impact. Because I don’t separate commercial art from so-called fine art I have always loved the fashion work of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.
I am a San Francisco Bay Area based photographer. Commonly called a street photographer, I use the photograph to express my view of our shared human experience and to open others to discovery. I’ve always loved the black and white image, but use color as well. I hope that you can share the world that I see and try to capture with images.
Jazz pianist Bill Evans said: “My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise. It’s easy to rediscover a part of yourself, but through art you can be shown a part of yourself you never knew existed. That’s the real mission of art. The artist has to find something within himself that’s universal and which he can put into terms that are communicable to other people. The magic of it is that art can communicate this to a person without his realizing it.”
Coming from a city, my vision tends to focus on people and the places where they live and work and play. It describes joy as well as hardship and tries to present both the complexity and simplicity of life.
My images of people are both posed and informal – the subject sometimes aware of the photograph, sometimes not. I try to use my cityscapes to present scenes that are overlooked by most of us as we live our day-to-day lives. While color presents the world as it is – in beauty and reality – I like to use black and white to strip away the extra information of color and reduce a person and a scene to their essential elements.
My artistic influences are many. Edward Steichen, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander and Arnold Neman have all made an impact. Because I don’t separate commercial art from so-called fine art I have always loved the fashion work of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.
If you are interested in purchasing any of these images please send me an email at andy@andrewbalaschak.com and I will reply with prices.