Candid Cameras -- Mostly meat, with a little cheese

Art photography doesn't get its due.
Because everyone has a camera, most people figure taking art photos is as easy as pointing the lens at something, uh, arty, and pushing the shutter button. We're a bit skeptical of art photographers because we think they aren't as skilled as someone who knows how to mix oil paints into the perfect shade of blue-green or wield an arc welder against a chunk of steel. All photographers do is take pictures. "We can do that," we say to ourselves when we look at an art photo.

There's more to art photography than pointing and shooting, though. Far more. For proof of this, check out the current photography exhibition at the Paper Heart, where the work of several art photographers (all but one of whom is a Phoenix resident) is on display. Some have gone beyond what the eye sees into what the heart sees. One or two are pointing at an "arty" subject and shooting, then glossing up their work with slick techniques and muddled artistic statements they believe will enhance the art quotient.

The strongest work in this show is also the most old-school. Joe Szkodzinski took his camera to the back alleys and backrooms of 1970s New York for street photography that captures revealing moments of reality. His black-and-white images, like one of a battered boxer contemplating his reflection in a mirror at a seedy gym, channel the gritty power of the city when it was still tough; this is New York pre-Rudy Giuliani, pre-chain-store invasion, and pre-loft developers.

Szkodzinski's photos pack a subtle punch. An image of a pair of elderly women speaks of the disappointments of Sunbelt cities and retirement. The women stand in front of a low-slung, orthodontisty commercial building straight out of the 1970s. Palm trees dot the near horizon, but this isn't the sun-washed paradise of chamber of commerce brochures. This is the suburbs at their dreariest and most banal -- all tract houses, parking lots and strip malls. The title doesn't indicate where the photo was taken, but it could be East Mesa or South Tampa. The women, unfashionably dressed and disabled by age, appear confused, disconnected and adrift. Their golden years are nothing like they thought they would be when they were 38, living in the Midwest, and saving for their retirement in a warm, sunny place. Szkodzinski shows in a single shot that there's pyrite in those palm trees and bitter disappointment waiting for those who believe they can cram a lifetime of delayed desires into their final years.

Review published in:  New Times, 8/18/05, By Leanne Potts