PHOTOGRAPHS OF ROB COPELAND

 

rob copeland

 

 

 

rob copeland

 

Above are some of the first pictures I saw of Rob Copeland's on facebook. He was a friend of someone I'd recently facebook friended. He sent some b&w photos to friend that appeared on my facebook page. Next day others. Next day others. As I'm seeing these pictures, I'm seeing somebody with a Gary Winogrand kind of eye, but his own with no references to Winogrand. Very different minds, but an eye that appreciates detail in the New York cityscape. I even see some of Woody Allen's love for visual detail in NYC. Copeland's reflection pictures work with my eye on two dimensions at once, 2-D and 3-D. They have the flatness of a 2-D photograph like the one of the car glass reflecting rows of windows on a flat plane. The car glass in the foreground looks at the same time like it is on the same plane as the building behind it. These images throw my eye back and forth between the two dimensions. That's what I love so much about them along with his eye for b&w. I don't know if he's a noted NY art photographer or not. I'd prefer not for the freshness in the images. And I'd automatically think that I am not the first to notice somebody in NY making stunning New York pictures that to this hillbilly's eye are stunningly new. No matter how little experience I have in viewing contemporary New York photographers, when an image jumps in my face and says SEE ME by its presence that is also not flash, by the power of its presence, I call it art. His images have visual power for me. I feel them.

 

rob Copeland

The one with the vertical white light is reflection on right of image on left. It's like what is the background beyond the white picket fence is the flat, 2-D photograph, and on the right these dots come out of the picture toward the viewer, making it 3-D. I may be way off, but this is what I see. And I don't think I'm exaggerating, because this is the first time I have at least noticed photographs that carry the illusion no matter how many times I look at it. It might be something a thousand photographers in NY are doing and I don't know it, but I've never seen any photographer with this kind of eye. All his pictures don't do that, of course, but enough do that I see it is something he has discovered, evidently recently. He even finds images that are not reflections that suggest reflections. I've looked at his collection of photographs on facebook and saw in the past the occasional reflection, then more and more, and recently just about everything is reflections. I'm thinking he's getting his mind blown by this new discovery. I've seen a lot of pictures of reflections, but Copeland's are the first in my experience, which is limited, that play with dimensions at the same time. Whatever the case where NY photographers is concerned, I don't know. What I know is Copeland's pictures knock my sox off. I also know I'm not the only one to see the art in what he is doing.

rob Copeland

 

 

His photographs bring to mind a couple of films I've seen with dim to vague to vanishing recollection of what they were. I'm not even sure they were the ones. One is Kieslowski's BLIND CHANCE, a film so fine I want to see it again, and Takashi Miike's GRAVEYARD OF HONOR, another I want to see again. Just now ran them to the top of the netflix Q, both will be here Wednesday. It will be a film festival at my house that night, double feature of some of my favorite films. The Miike film is severely violent, but I appreciate it despite that, including that, beyond that. Overkill turns into comedy before long. Somebody blows away a room full of people, no big thang, just like evening news. Whether or not Graveyard of Honor is the one I was remembering with faulty memory doesn't matter. I do remember that when it was over I made a mental note to remember the title, because I wanted to see it again after a lapse of time, not right away. Ready to see it again. I'm excited already about Wednesday. Another of Miike's magnificent kill fests is 13 ASSASSINS. It's kind of on the order of 7 SAMURAI, but it's 13. Beautiful film. Beautifully made in every way a film can be beautiful. But, if you're into chick flicks, do not go there. And there is a Chinese film I'm recalling made I think in Taiwan. I'll go searching and see if it can be found. Soon. 

 

 

rob copeland

 

 

This is one of his pictures I picked up from his facebook collection from the past that I see the same eye that made the reflection pictures. This is a common NYC scene, the kind that wherever you walk, you'll pass a work zone of color compositions. Here, we're seeing the orange rectangles and lines horizontal and vertical, a rectangular patch of green, seen through a grid of vertical and horizontal lines, squares, a fence. My mind knows the grid of squares is the foreground and everything else is the background, while my eye sees the grid on the same plane as the background, like the picture was printed on paper that already had the lines on it. This is what I love about Copeland's pictures, the juxtaposition of the two dimensions. The perceived real and the perceived illusion together, side by side as one image. If I'd found the above scene with a camera I'd have wet my pants on the spot. Feeling my own excitement in his images gives an idea of what he's feeling framing the shots. Going by his notations in facebook with the pictures he posts almost daily, he is rigorous about his pictures. Goes out early in the morning walking with camera, searching for magic moments in reflections.

 

 

rob copeland

 

 



I don't know Copeland except suddenly in these amazing photographs that bring to mind some of the photographers I've enjoyed over the years like Joel Meyerowitz, esp the pictures in his book Cape Light. Gary Winogrand I see, though only in the cityscape and the way of using b&w with high contrast. I get the impression Copeland has not made a book of photographs. I can't find anything at amazon. A lot of his images have the quality of art about them that holds my gaze the thousandth time I see one. I can see a show in a NY gallery of his reflection images. It would be a beautiful exhibit. Extraordinarily beautiful. His images excite me because I know they're everywhere. He has opened a new dimension to my awareness. Walking through parking lots I look at clouds and signs on windshields, hoods, trunklids, chrome. In shop windows I look at the reflection first. My sort of logo picture for this blog is a reflection image. The difference between his and mine is that he is focusing on reflections, where mine was a found reflection, noticed because it jumped in my face with lights all around it that said SEE ME, FEEL ME. Now I'm seeing reflections everywhere when I'm in town. Out here in the mountain is clouds and trees in the glass of the car. Thank you, Rob Copeland, for opening up a whole new world for appreciation in everyday life. I don't have art museums to go to around here, so I look for art where I can find it. I see Rob Copeland keeps his eye alert for found art in his world as urban as my world is rural. I don't know how to tell you to find more unless you can look him up on facebook. I doubt he'd mind you asking to view his photographs.  

 

 

rob Copeland

 

rob Copeland

 

 

rob Copeland

 

 

 

rob copeland

 

 

 

rob Copeland

 

 

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