' CAMERA-WORKS: The Photo-Show!! ' / Day 1 -- GARNET TENNYSON HADLEY

photogarnettennysonhadley
www.wix.com/hadleyasoc/garnet-tennyson-hadley

The photograph ‘Red Paint’ is from a 2010 book entitled “Views from the Road – Photographs Shot While Driving Dashiell 5,536 Miles, Arlington, VA – Jacksonville, NC. August through October 2007”.

During this period my elderly mother was hospitalized in North Carolina and my attention was often needed.  So to make the drive, which at times was done twice in a week, more palatable, I would take side roads as much as possible and stop and photograph.  This made each road trip much longer but provided a bit of joy in an otherwise difficult situation.  I looked forward to being on the road and having the time to stop and photograph whenever and whatever struck my fancy.

This particular photograph of a ranch house speaks to me not only because of its color but of the contrast with the red paint on the street.  I was walking in this neighborhood when I came upon it and in the scheme of things it might go unnoticed if one were to simply drive past; walking enables a slower, quieter appreciation for our surroundings and allows the eye to see.  

***

As co-owner of an Architectural and Interior Design Studio, Garnet Tennyson Hadley has a strong design vocabulary which extends to her love of photography.  Her viewpoint is profoundly evident in her photographs which display a calming beauty with a tinge of humor.  She finds and invents surprising beauty in quite ordinary objects and settings.  Rustic, prosaic scenes become beautiful and universal.

The images that Garnet shoots are composed in the camera achieving her vision through careful selection and composition.  Her passion is the expression of the beauty in real scenes, often quite common scenes in fact, without manipulation of the final image.

The various books and portfolios of photographs that she produces suggest intriguing stories about places and events.  The viewer is drawn into her vision and into her outlook of the lives and histories of the scenes that she photographs.  Her composition of colors and objects inspires a calm curiosity and one is able to imagine actually being at the site.

From early childhood leaning over the front seat of the families ’57 Chevy looking at square black and white snapshots just picked up from the drug store, Garnet has been intrigued by photography.  Particular influences have been Helen Levitt, William Christenberry, Marion Post Wolcott, Charles Sheeler and Howard Marler.