GALLERY EXHIBITION
I’m pleased to announce an exhibition of 10 photographs at Books & Books during the month of August. The images noted as ‘suspensions, tensions + illusions’ have been culled from several locations over a 10-year period, they share a bit mystery and illusion - some obvious, some less so. This collection was also just submitted to the 2026 Photolucida CRITICAL MASS. Installation on August 1st, with an opening reception during GALLERY NIGHT, Friday evening, August 7th, from 6 pm - 10 pm.
Hope you’ll have an opportunity to stop by and see the work.
- Ken Lyon
Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave, Coral Gables, Florida 33134
DISCLAIMER: This is my first stab at a web-site, at first it was rather challenging, but things started to click, it’s come together and generally I’m happy with the result (feel free to offer any alternative thoughts). That being said, there is an important technical issue that I haven’t been able to solve, specifically the digital RESOLUTION, or lack thereof. The equipment I use to capture images (lens, sensor, etc) are arguably the best on the market, the software used to ‘develop’ the digital negatives is also top-notch, and the printed results are very pleasing - meaning they are sharp, detailed, on-point. When transferring images onto this web-site, they most definitely have lost definition. I’m told that this problem is solvable, I’m working on it and hope to soon remove this disclaimer!
NOTE: If YOU are a photographer and are aware of how to fix this problem, please get in touch with me. -KL
Why no Color?
This website is a portfolio of my photographs, a place to present my work as well as a forum to discuss the medium, in general. You will notice, fairly quickly, that the photographs exhibited here are all black & white, none of them are in color. To be clear, I love some photographers work in color, and although it’s not my way of seeing ‘photographically’ it doesn’t mean I harbor some sort of objection or disregard for color work.
That being said, the following are a few viewpoints as to why my preference is black & white.
Firstly, as stated below, my intro to photography came to me via the darkroom, specifically one with black & white processing. Why? Because it is easier to learn using black & white film and chemistry. Very few people I knew - with one major exception* - as I began to associate with other photographers, did their own color processing.
Secondly, as I began to become more and more interested in the art form, I began collecting books on photography - monographs published by Aperture (mostly); Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Alfred Stieglitz, and so many others. They all worked in black & white, and their work greatly influenced my own.
Thirdly, and this is an oft discussed topic, and somewhat defensive (but true), a conversation that goes like this - when you work in color, the eye jumps to the color, and the color becomes the subject, the color becomes the focus, the color becomes the image; yet when working in black & white, with the absence of color, the photograph must be more carefully composed, more thought must be put into the light and the angles, more emphasis on the voids and the shadows, etc. - all must be driven by composition and a meticulous control of light. This leads some to say that it is harder to make a great black & white image - or conversely, much easier to make a color image. Of course this is completely debunked when you see a lousy black & white photograph, or a fantastic image in color!
Photography got its practical start in France and England around the same time, in the 1840’s, and in the 185 years to the present, the first 100 years (+/-) it was a black & white medium. Sure color existed, some experimental color work was done in the early 1900’s, but it didn’t become practical and widespread for quite a while. So we have a very important period when photography was maturing, and it was all in black & white.. Some photographers held on - never changing over to color, and some only worked in color, and of course, some love and choose to work in both.
* The one exception was my late friend Mark Morrisroe, we attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (aka Museum School) and all the work Mark was creating at the Museum school at that time was shot in color, AND he did all his own processing.
My Beginnings in Photography
“My foray into photography began, oddly enough, in the darkroom, during my ‘mad-scientist’ persona at the formative age of twelve in 1969. The desire to explore the photo-chemical process presented a dilemma - exposed film was needed to develop, and this is what compelled me to pick up a camera! And once in hand, the camera quickly became a comfortable, natural and instinctive form of visual communication. And so the two sides of the coin were forged, expose the film in-camera - thus creating the latent image, and then the developing processes; first transform the film into negatives, then print the negatives into positives.“
“In the world of analogue photography, knowledge of one aspect informs the other, both are born of art and science.”
“In the world of digital photography, the fleeting moment of a backlit illuminated image splashes before our eyes, as we process tens of thousands of images in nano-seconds; but to observe a well made print on paper, held in your hands or mounted on a wall, is a much needed reprieve. It’s the photographers ‘touch grass’ moment, an important visual meditation that alas, so few get to experience anymore.”
Sheldon Ruins, Beaufort SC