Steve Collins is an experienced landscape photographer in the southwest with extensive image processing work. He utilizes a unique system that involves generating multiple images of his intended scene and then skillfully stitching them together to create exceptionally large panoramas. This meticulous post-processing technique allows him to capture a broad perspective of the landscapes, from the mundane to the droll, the majestic to the sinister. Through his work, he effectively showcases the diverse and captivating facets of the southwestern region, creating compelling visual narratives that resonate with viewers.

WEST December 2021

As we all know photography is a very fast medium. 1/100 of a second or so produces an image to start working with. What we do next whether in the darkroom (now considered impossibly slow) or digitally can be many things - for some it’s just making the latent image look exactly like what it came from in that 1/100 of a second. For others, it’s a starting point to alter, enhance, add or subtract detail or knowledge about the original. When someone takes a photo of Uncle Phil and Aunt Edna at a party, the viewer (usually an interested party), will say “oh, it’s Phil and Edna”. Of course, it’s not Phil and Edna, but a likeness of them. When Ansel Adams took a photo of El Capitan in Yosemite, even though his methods were infinitely more involved than a Phil and Edna snapshot, often the result was the same; someone said it was El Capitan. Adams, of course knew what he was doing as an artist and wanted that 1/100 of a second image to be representative of El Capitan and be transcendent in such a way as to become a more extraordinary version of itself. 

My interest in photo imagery has nearly always been to make the image something other than what it started out to represent. Whether it was so hyperreal that the pores on someone’s skin became as important as the portrait, or the panoramic landscape was so large and vivid that a tiny insignificant cluster of leaves became the center of attention. Sometimes my interest has been to make the clear seem to not be so - something dreamlike and not fully remembered. Other times I have been interested in taking the techniques used in commercial imagery and using them to make the insignificant seem more important. 

One of my favorite photographers is Eadweard Muybridge who in the late 19th century proved that a galloping horse had all four hooves off the ground at one point. He went on to do important series including Human Locomotion and Animal Locomotion using banks of cameras to capture the motion of simple movement. Science, but also great photography! Using my interpretation of his work, I set up a gridded backdrop and had motionless nudes take their own photos. Fake science, hopefully, good photography.

This current work of panoramic landscapes draws on several interests. First and foremost is scale. As in much of my other work, I’m using panorama and size as keys to attracting the viewer to see large and wide. This now seems to be normal vision to me. Next is subject - these images foretell that you will be looking at something grand; often however the foreground subject is flat and neutral and the drama is way to the back. Of course, sometimes it’s the other way around. Lastly, I have pushed the colors slightly toward monochromatic to further move the images from reality toward the other-worldly.   ~ Steve Collins

Selected Exhibitions

2004      
Verve Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico (Solo Exhibition)

1983        
Workbench Galley, New York City (Group show, furniture)

1980         
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, “Beyond Color”
Santa Fe Gallery of Photography (Solo exhibition)
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Harbor, CA “New Acquistions” and “Fabricated to Be Photographed” Art Museum, University of New Mexico, “Fabricated to Be Photographed”

1979        
Castelli Graphics, New York, “Pictures/Photographs”
Light Gallery, New York, “Four from California”
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, Group Show
ARCO Gallery for Visual Arts, Los Angeles, Solo exhibition

1978    
Susan Spiritus Gallery, Newport Beach, CA
Pennsylvania State University, Solo exhibition
Focus Gallery, San Francisco, Solo exhibition
U.C. Davis, Davis, CA, Solo exhibition
Univ. of Montana, Missoula, Montana, Solo exhibition
DeYoung Museum, San Francisco
“Bent Photography- Eight California Photographers” one-year touring
exhibit of Australian Art Museums

Selected Publications/Reviews (1974-1980)

Village Voice
Art Week
American Photographer
Museum Photography
San Francisco Chronicle
Catalog-Fabricated to Be Photographed
Catalog-Beyond Color
Catalog-Blue Sky Gallery

Collections

Newport Harbor Art Museum
Susan Spiritus
Bank of America
Atlantic Richfield Corporation
Bank of London
Joseph P. Carr
William Coleman
Timothy Dwight Hobart

Formerly represented by

Verve Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Castelli Graphics, New York City
Susan Spiritus Gallery, Newport Beach, CA
Douglas Elliot Gallery, San Francisco
Workbench Gallery, New York City

Unnaturals: Open Pit Mines

Open pit mines, usually copper, but also gold, silver, molybdenum and others dot the American southwest and northern Mexico. Sometimes located where towns have been built around them, and sometimes very remote, their scale can be immense. They often remake the landscape entirely and can have their own extraordinary beauty and majesty.