J. Cook didn’t set out to become an art photographer.He retired after a
36-year career in ministry initially Christian Church and preparing little beyond spending time with household. On Jan. 7, however, he’ll open the exhibition”
Barns and Backroads: Photography by J. Cook “at the Art Association of Jacksonville’s David Strawn Art Gallery, 331 W. College Ave.”It’s uncommon,”Cook said
of his fondness for photographing old barns, covered bridges, one-room schoolhouses and deserted farm houses.”I do not know what got me into it. My wife informed me to take an image of a barn one time. I went on, following the impulse.”An opening reception for
the exhibition “Barns and Backroads: Photography by J. Cook”will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 7 at the Art Association of Jacksonville’s David Strawn Art Gallery, 331 W. College Ave. A gallery talk by Cook will be at 6:30 p.m. Gallery hours are from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday and from 4 to 6 p.m.
Tuesday through Saturday. Admission to the reception and the gallery is totally free. The exhibition will remain on screen through Jan.
29. See More Collapse Cook’s images are scenic, a timeless red barn framed by an old windmill and a line of vibrant clouds
, or a weathered barn that’s collapsing, held together as much by the overgrowth surrounding it as any staying nails, even as the structure itself stays enforcing.” As far as I’m concerned, I do not like taking pictures of well-groomed, vinyl-overlayed barns,”Cook said.
“There’s something about an old, worn-out barn that’s both sentimental and sad, in a way. I prefer them. I want them to show antiquity.” … Just provide me an old barn with a shaker roofing system on it and I like it.” Prepare didn’t wait up until retirement to
establish his interest in photography.” I had a darkroom when I lived
in Liberty 48 years earlier,” he stated.”When I came(to Jacksonville )in 1983, I stopped for a while.”When he and his spouse, Janie, found themselves with an empty nest, he got the pastime once again– but with a digital cam, including the one on his phone. Despite his love of traditional barns, he’s accepted modern-day photography.” With digital, the beauty of it is you can take as numerous pictures as you desire,”Cook said.
When people used film,”you were cautious about taking shots due to the fact that, each time you did, it cost you something.”He wasn’t as crazy about digital photography in the early days, when”
it was more primitive,”he said,”but it’s come a long way in the last 10, 15 years. I do prefer it now. I have the ability to be more innovative.” Cook acknowledges modifying his pictures, not just cropping them to frame the image just so but, often, eliminating components that interfere with the total image.”I take out telephone poles and lines just to give a pure view, “Cook stated, noting that he
struggles to find the line in between “boosting” an image and changing its reality beyond acknowledgment. “… My better half and I have that discussion. She prefers realism however sees the need “to clear the view. He felt better about those little tweaks after checking out that famous landscape professional photographer Ansel Adams, who Cook has long appreciated, did much the same, utilizing the ability and methods readily available to him at the time to “control”his images in the procedure of developing and printing his film. Leading photographers” do not discover the perfect picture however the best background or the
perfect sky “and then make the rest happen, Cook said. He starts his quest to”make the rest take place” with trip in search of those old barns, though
he’s been understood to stumble on a scene that influences him to take out his phone and snap a couple of photos.”When I take a look at old barns, it reminds me of both sides of the household,” Cook said, noting that his mother’s household farmed in Colchester and his wife’s daddy was a farmer in Iowa.”We just
have many really enjoyable memories of those old barns.” … It’s sentimental. We’re seeing many of them being torn down. It speaks a lot of a simpler time, a hard-working time, however a simpler time. It’s a part of my youth and reminds
me of good ideas.”He wonders to see if his images strike home with the Strawn’s audience.”I will be interested to see if people have the exact same fascination with barns that I do,”
he said. He likely already knows the response. Pals have actually asked him for copies of his photos, encouraged him to show them and even to make a coffee table book including them, he said,
including that somebody also discussed his work to
the Strawn. He didn’t set out to be an art photographer, but he may well have actually ended up as one. Regardless, he has no objective of stopping.”That’s a dying part of our Americana,”Cook said.”They’re taking them away, tearing them down, utilizing the wood for other tasks. I want to snap while the iron’s hot. “