A Sea of Sand (Hills)

I'm fairly certain that the best drive in the state of Nebraska is state highway 27 between Gordon and Ellsworth. Fifty-five miles of winding road, rising and falling through the near-absolute isolation of the sand hills. Just make sure to fill your tank beforehand; There's about 90 miles between gas stations.

The above photograph is from downtown Bayard in the shadow (figuratively) of Chimney Rock.

Also visited: Alliance, Hay Springs, Rushville, Lakeside, Antioch and McGrew.

Westward!

It's been too long since my last visit to Nebraska's panhandle. I missed most everything about the place. Sometimes its easy to forget that a person is in Nebraska when driving through this part of the state.

The day started off in McCook, looking to improve my image for Red Willow county after a couple of earlier attempts left a little to be desired. After a morning of dreary gray clouds, the sun finally broke through and made for a beautiful early spring day. It is definitely nice to leave the long-standing piles of snow behind in Omaha.

The above image is of the main street in Danbury. The village of 128 people lies just a few miles north of the Kansas border southeast of McCook.

Also visited: Marion, Hayes Center, Wallace, Broadwater, Bridgeport and Harrisburg.

Spring print sale!

To celebrate the completion of the ninety-three project and my first solo exhibition, I'm offering a special discounted print sale to everyone I am lucky enough to have the support of here in the early going. Any image from the ninety-three, on the road, or details sections of my website are available.

All prints will be 15x10" c-prints on 20x16" paper matted with an archival mat and backing board. Each will be hand-numbered and signed by the artist. The prints will only be produced in limited amounts. I haven't chosen the editions yet, but expect to only produce 15-25 of each image for sale.

The pre-exhibition price is no longer available. Enjoy the show.

To purchase a photograph, send me an email at josephvavak@gmail.com or contact me via my facebook fan page.


As always, your support is greatly appreciated. All of the funds will go into making the Hot Shops show a successful debut. I'm very excited to get this show on the road.

Images Of Nebraska

I stumbled across this book a few weeks ago on Amazon and ordered a copy out of curiosity. Nebraska Photographic Documentary Project 1975-1977 was published by the University Of Nebraska Press in conjunction with the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery.


The book is best described by its rather wordy title. Two photographers, Robert Starck and Lynn Dance, documented the state of Nebraska in the spirit of photographers like Walker Evans. Their black and white photographs are very straight-forward, a collection of places and people that they encountered throughout the state over the course of the project.

As a whole, the Photographic Documentary Project is an interesting look at the state of Nebraska nearly three and a half decades ago. Many of the photographs may be unremarkable, but that's the nature of this kind of work. I was happy to see a project somewhat similar to my own in print and enjoyed comparing my work with that of these two photographers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the images in this collection feel as if they could have been taken just yesterday. As much as parts of Omaha and Lincoln continue to rapidly change and expand, much of the state stays remarkably the same.




I attempted to google both Starck and Dance without much success. If anyone stumbles across this blog that knows more about this book or the photographers behind it, please drop me a line at josephvavak at g mail dot com. I'm curious to know if they continued to produce photographs after finishing this project.