Alan Petrulis - Night Tracings Photography

CHAOS THEORY

When I first began taking photographs, they were almost exclusively used for informational purposes in the process of creating etchings and paintings. Since I had no intent of ever showing this work, concerns over the types of quality issues that most photographers deal with never showed up. Over time, practice made me a better photographer and I found myself capturing scenes that could hold their own as finished pieces. This discovery only made me want to create more of them. The rationale behind most of these stray shots was easy to decipher; at first glance they were attractive in a way that most would expect from photography. Though no conscious philosophy was followed, scenes that caught my eye tended to be composed in a manner that ennobled the landscape, no doubt helped along by my long infatuation with pictorial Romanticism.

Even as I began to put a whole new body of photographic work together, I still found myself taking shots that did not seem to fit into any tradition. Onlookers spotting me hovering over some refuse or an unkempt corner of a yard would sometimes question me in a distasteful tone with, “Why are you taking a picture of that?” My usual curt reply of, “Because it pleases me to do so” never seemed to satisfy anyone’s ears. What no one ever realized was that I was giving them the best answer I had. It was only after many more years had passed, when I began looking back over the thousands of transparencies accumulated, did I discover what once seemed like randomness in the moment was anything but random. A fresh eye not only told me that these strange shots also worked as finished pieces, but that when seen as a whole they took on a thematic air without any intention to create one.

The more of the chaotic and complex my work seemed to embrace, the stronger an underlying stream of order shown through. This was true with my methodology as well as the subjects I shot. Where a single shot might seem arbitrary, they read as a coherent idea when observed in a group, each image reinforcing the understanding of the next. Their initial appeal generally rises from their careful compositional balance where color, form and line create delicate harmonies that overpower any sense of documentation or sentiment. While some of these pictures are nearly abstract, it is difficult to completely avoid loaded imagery that makes it impossible not to draw narrative associations. If this bothered me at first, it does no longer. We are all story tellers at heart.

The ability to find order within chaos is basically an intuitive act, but even so it is not always easy to recognize for we all learn to frame the world in artificial ways. It becomes difficult to see the beauty in simple color and form when we apply meaning to everything before our eyes. My method is not just a matter of reducing what I look at down to formal ideas; it’s about seeing into the soul of things. Too many replace the old with the shiny without regard to anything beyond newness because most do not see things as they exist but only as their own idea of them. While it is impossible to completely divorce vision from the values imposed on things, I have refocused my own efforts into discovering the poetry within what most of us discard in our daily lives as ugly, incidental or chaotic. This has become my personal style and these types of photographs are predominant in my later work.

PORTFOLIOS

Each portfolio below contains sixteen photographs within a theme, with the exception of Mermaids, which has multiple pages. None of these portfolios were planed while taking the actual photographs. They have all come together after the fact as a body of work gradually accumulated. Those of New England and the Hudson Valley are the oldest and largely represent a more traditional approach to a landscape influenced by romantic ideas. More current and personal work can be found in the Rambles section, especially those of Greater New York.

	ACADIA NATIONAL PARK - Mount Desert Island is a perfect blend of lakes, mountains, forest, and seashore. Few places contain so many variables within so little an area.
	SMALL VIEWS OF ACADIA - While great panoramas abound from the mountaintops and high cliffs of Acadia National Park, some of its most appealing scenes are of smaller scale.
	ATROPHY - Without constant vigilance and repair, things created by the hand of man slowly crumble. These photographs are of places once considered the height of industrial efficiency or luxurious living.
	BLOCK ISLAND - While visual drama is not lacking, beauty here is largely found in subtlety.
	CAPE ANN - Fishermen, quarrymen, and artists have all lent a hand in shaping perceptions of this rocky outpost jutting out into the sea.
	CITY GLASS - Our ability to decipher illusions may keep us from walking into plate glass, but this practical ability to often inhibits us from experiencing the marvel of complex layers of space.
	COTTAGE CITY - This community of small gingerbread Victorians within the town of Oak Bluffs creates a compelling counterweight to the glass and steel structures found in our cities.
	THE DEAD - While the iconography of gravestones has interested me for some time, this series of cemetery portraiture captures the exchange between the human soul and the seemingly inert.
	THE DEAD POOL - As sail gave way to coal, and coal to diesel thousands of obsolete craft were abandoned along the back shores of New York. Most are gone now, but this series explores those once found on the Arthur Kill.
	THE HUDSON HIGHLANDS - The River and surrounding mountains loom as large in life as they do in legend. Real drama can be found here as part of the everyday.
	MACMILLAN WHARF - Variables in light, weather and texture provides a constant flow of interesting views of the Provincetown fishing fleet that anchors at the end of this long pier.
	THE MAINE COAST - It is difficult working with a landscape that carries so much sentimental baggage yet provides so much natural beauty at the same time.
	MERMAIDS - Coney Island’s annual Mermaid Parade not only celebrates the arrival of summer but the eclectic artistry of the not so ordinary people that live in New York. NOTE: This portfolio has multiple pages.
	MINDSCAPES - This is an experimental series of montages made from snippets of textures and graffiti found on the streets of New York. They represent thought processes rather than actual places.
	MONHEGAN ISLAND - This small Island off the Maine coast has attracted artists and photographers for over a century, so many in fact that there is little new left to say but I add to the conversation anyway.
	NANTUCKET TOWN - While this old whaling town has cloaked itself in the guise of stability, preserving and reconstructing old buildings with historical accuracy, a strange yet appealing dichotomy between old and new remains.
	POINT REYES & THE HEADLANDS - Just north of San Francisco is a very varied landscape of shore and mountains, pastures and primal forests, plus the remnants of coastal defense operations all combined into an environment challenged by ever changing weather.
	PREPONDERENCE OF THE SMALL - There is a great deal of order to be found in the natural world amidst that which is normally perceived of as chaotic. Textures, patterns and seemingly random mixtures are all part of a greater balance.
	THE PROVINCELANDS - This giant sandy spiral at the tip of Cape Cod was once held in common by the residents of Provincetown. Now as part of a National Seashore it can seem a near wilderness if you don%rsquo;t wander too close to the tourists or the town.
	SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND - This is a selection of images shot in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts not found in other portfolios.