Archive
Happy Holidays 2016
Wishing you and yours a happy holiday season…
White Christmas, Rockefeller Center, NYC 2009
As if on cue, while visiting Rockefeller Center during the holidays in 2009, the snow began to fall over this iconic scene. Backing up behind the row of trumpeting angels, I shot this familiar, but still magical, view.
It was lucky that I got this shot when I did. The next year I went back their was a photographic set up at this spot, with a long line of tourists willing to pay big bucks to have their photo taken in front of this scene.
Lesson learned, always capture the classics when they come up, you never know if…or when they will ever be available again.
Patterns in Nature / Seeing is Believing / Sometimes…Less is More
Circumstances beyond my control have kept me from creating new work for a while, so I have been reaching into my archives, which are very deep. This post is about seeing patterns in
Flamingo Feathers, 2013
nature. When I would look at a scene to photograph, I crop it in my mind to create the maximum impact. The flamingo’s feathers were all that were required here to showcase an example of the beauty of natural patterns. In the image below the patterns of this spider web became more
Beaded Web, Weston, FL 2011
pronounced by the beaded drops of water after a light rain. Again, although the web spanned between two fence posts in my backyard, omitting them from the composition made the image.
The lesson…sometimes less is more.
Duncan Miller Gallery, Los Angeles recognizes Barry Steven Greff’s image: Rush Hour, Grand Central Station in their Your Daily Photograph
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Rush Hour, Grand Central Station, NYC 2009
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U. S. National Park Service Celebrates 100 Years Today
On August 25, 2016, the U. S. National Park Service turns 100 years old. By the Act of March 1, 1872, Congress established Yellowstone National Park in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming “as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people” and placed it
River of Fallen Trees, Yellowstone National Park, 2010
“under exclusive control of the Secretary of the Interior.” The founding of Yellowstone National Park began a worldwide national park movement. initially, these parks were run by various government agencies so No single agency provided unified management of the varied federal parklands. On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the National Park Service http://www.nps.gov, a federal bureau in the Department of the Interior
Bison, King of the Mountain, Yellowstone National Park, WY 2010
responsible for protecting the 35 national parks and monuments then managed by the department and those yet to be established.
Over the years I have had the privilege of visiting several of these jewels. Yellowstone has so much diversity to offer. Its variety and abundance of wildlife; steaming, colorful, prismatic springs and gushing geysers to name a few. The Visitor Center at Old Faithful actually has a clock on the wall that notifies visitors of eruption times within a few minutes either way. Now… there’s an App for that….assuming you can get service in the Park, you can time your visits to make sure you capture an eruption.
So, Happy 100th to the National Park Service. Here’s wishing it many more centennials of protecting these magnificent, natural wonders. Here’s also hoping they are still around to be enjoyed by our children and our children’s children. For this folks… is Mother Nature at her absolute finest.
Magnum Editors recognize BSG’s jellyfish image:”Ascension” from his FLOW series in their Magnum Photos Award Competition Gallery 2016
Magnum Photos is historically, one of the most well respected names in photography. It is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo. 
According to its co-founder (and one of the great photoraphers of our time), Henri Cartier-Bresson “Magnum is a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on and a desire to transcribe it visually.”
The iconic Robert Capa, Cartier-Bressson and a few other founding members created Magnum http://www.magnumphotos.com/ in Paris in 1947. Over time it has continued operating by its roster of members who are some of the greatest names in the history of photography, such as Ansel Adams, Eve Arnold, Cornell Capa, Bruce Davidson, Elliot Erwitt, Ernst Haas, Dorothea Lange, Mary Ellen Mark, Steve McCurry, James Natchwey, Martin Parr, W. Eugene Smith, Alec Soth and Sebastio Salgado, to name a few.
For the Editors of this hallowed institution, who deal with such incredible photography each day, to recognize my work and prominently display it, is a great honor for which I am truly grateful.
Meet me in St. Louis…at least my work.
St. Louis Fine Print Fair – May 6-8, 2016
CITYSCAPES
Touch the Sky, 30 Rock
Cab Ride in the Rain, NYC
This weekend, from May 6 through May 8, is the 10th annual St. Louis Fine Print Fair http://bit.ly/R5eI8K. Stop by the booth of photography addict/rep, Jeff Appel of Photography Past & Present, Missouri http://www.photographypastandpresent.com/ to see the work of some highly respected photographers as well as some terrific emerging artists.
Jeff works with many prestigious photographers such as Roger Ballen, Paul Caponigro, John Sexton, Jock Sturges, Roman Loranc and Alan Ross, who was Ansel Adam’s photographic assistant. Other artists such as Cole and Kim Weston, whose father was the famed 20th Century photographer Edward Weston, have created great work themselves. Finally, Jeff works with some talented emerging and/or mid-career artists such as Camille Seaman and…yes, Barry Steven Greff. The four images above will be available at the fair and many others can be viewed at http://www.barrystevengreff.com. So, “Meet me in St. Louis” (sort of) this weekend. Anyone interested in getting on the guest list can reach Jeff through his website or on FB at http://bit.ly/1WECQN7. Friday night is a Silent Auction and Preview Party from 6-9 pm.
So if you happen to be in Ole St. Lou, stop by and see Jeff…and tell him Barry sent you.
Diary of a Fine Art Print / Amongst other things, it’s all in the Details
Niagara, 2006
(Cropped portion of people and bird from- Niagara, 2006)
The discussion as to what makes a Fine Art photograph is one for the ages. I have long respected the genre and have worked diligently to hone my craft. Although there are various definitions of what makes a photograph fine art, I subscribe to a more tradional theory that such an image is created with an aesthetic intention, that the value lies primarily in its beauty, rather than for journalistic, editorial or commercial purposes. I also believe that the image should tell a story, be unique, iconic, powerful…or all of the above. As beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, so goes a fine art photograph which usually entails vetting by those respected in the field. Knowing this, I fearlessly spent my early years placing my work in front of some of the most well respected photographers, gallerists, curators and collectors in the business. With the help of their support, the work was widely published in fine art magazines, exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and over time, a significant resume was built.
I believe that one of my signature images, Niagara, clearly exemplifies these equalities (shot from atop a hotel two miles away to capture this angle)… It has countinously been singled out by many of those alluded to above, in that the composition juxtaposing the grandeur of the falls with the minutia of the toursists indicates just how small we humans are in comparison to the forces of Mother Nature.
After getting past the composition (and then lighting, both of which cannot be adequately discussed in a blog post, if at all), I personally take significant pride in capturing the exacting details of a scene, whether it be the people in this image or the fine feathers in one of my close-up animal portraits.
Then, finally, and consistent with the teachings of the great Ansel Adams himself, capturing the image is only one half of the process. The printing (again, not something that can be covered here), is crucial to the creation of a fine art photographic print. Being true to the process, I hand print each of my images (up to 17″ x 22″) on a professional Epson 3800 printer using Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl paper and I personally oversee the larger prints to make sure they are color correct (again, another significant concern for another day) and that they print without a single unexpected blemish.
Finally, I pride myself on the key details of my images being “tack” sharp, as exemplified by the enlarged cropped portion of the image above. Although some of the older images can go only so far, as a perfectionist, I have gone through an entire roll of paper (athough thankfully not often) in order to ultimately create a single large print for a collector, and to my exacting standards. When a gallerist who regularly sells the work of masters such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston calls my prints “magic,” I know that I am doing something right.
Hence, there are many sources by which one can obtain a Fine Art print. I simply offer one that is created in my mind’s eye…and always from my heart. It is universally accepted that the first rule of collecting fine art photographyy is to actually enjoy the work. Hence, I strive to create images that make the viewer not only think…but feel, and I have been honored to have satisfied a wide array of selective collectors, and look forward to doing so for many others in the future.
