SHAPLEIGH SMITH
This Land of Mine
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PROJECT STATEMENT:
Growing up in rural Connecticut, I often dreamed of what this world might be like beyond the hardwood forests and pastures of my small town. Who was it that lived there? What kind of houses did they live in? What kinds of trees, grasses, and crops were there? Were the mountains taller, the rivers wider, the oceans endless?
In grammar school, I received my first introduction to what lay beyond the Mississippi River, as so many of my Saturday afternoons were spent watching western movies at our local theater. Tales written by Kerouac ("On The Road") and Steinbeck ("Travels with Charley") captivated my attention while in high school, pulling me to further explore America. By the time I’d reached adulthood, I was lucky enough to have traveled much of the country, but my experiences were always those of ‘flying over’. I’d look down from my window-side seat of the airplane wondering what it must be like to wander and meander thru this expansive landscape.
It wasn’t until we found ourselves grounded by COVID restrictions that my wife - Peggy - and I bought ourselves our travel RV with an intention to fill this lifelong wanderlust. Summer 2021 and spring 2022 found us exploring many of the backroads that traversed this great country. As Paul Simon said in his song America: “I’ve gone to look for America….we’ve all gone to look for America”. As we traveled in our own metaphorical covered wagon, we found vast expanses of farmland, their farms and their crops, rivers, roadways, train tracks, power lines, beautiful and congested cities; and mostly a long and lonesome landscape stretching out under endless skies.
Here - I’m sharing with you snapshots as seen by me, and captured with my camera’s lens. My goal was to capture the variety, the flavor, the differences and the similarities in these landscapes.
I work in black-and-white because, to me, it simplifies and enhances elements in the picture that are otherwise lost when seen in color. My hope is that each image tells a different story which will be imagined by the viewer as their own. We, as a country, are made up of many different environments, regions, peoples, ideas, wishes, lifestyles, and philosophies but still, we are one.
As written and sung by Woody Guthrie, “This land is your land and this land in my land”.
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ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Shapleigh was surrounded with photographs while he was growing up as his father and grandfather were both avid amateur photographers. Many of the black and white photos that Shapleigh’s grandfather captured were of people, buildings or landscapes in New England, Europe and the Caribbean in the latter part of the 19th century. These were fascinating shots of a time when travel was by horse, carriage, train or boat; a time when everyone dressed as if going to a Sunday service; a time when cities where filled with soot from wood or coal fires, dirt streets were a dangerous place with droppings from the horses, the countryside a place of quiet beauty as well as industrious hillside farms and their families.
Shapleigh’s father, and later his step-father, were also great travelers consuming the sights from even further afield than the grandfather. The photos that they each shot in the mid to late 20th century evolved into color transparencies of great clarity and beauty peaking Shapleigh’s interest in the art of photography.
So it is not surprising that Shapleigh would continue the curiosity his forefathers had. Without a formal, structured education in the world of photography Shapleigh has always been able to explore the various means of capturing images – be they film, transparencies, transfers or digital. Once again returning to the black and white of his youth for the special qualities of timeliness and light, Shapleigh has been focusing on portraits of people with the hopes of capturing the owner’s particular emotions of the moment.
To see more of his work, click - here.
All artwork is available for sale.
For pricing information contact
Shap Smith:
shapsmithphotos@gmail.com