The timeless interface of sea and shore — and the lost art of “wet” photography — mark the work of Colin Seitz, on display now at the Oyster Point Hotel.
To hear Colin Seitz tell it, his photographs “offer the viewer an escape from everyday life, to be transported off to somewhere with no ringing phones or full email inboxes” — a philosophy that the executive with Red Bank-based Apex Fund Services surely takes to heart, when scoping out scenery from our own local Shore to the most breathtaking expanses of Alaska, Hawaii, and Yosemite.
For the Brick Township resident, his workday stomping grounds have represented a spiritual homeland every bit as significant as the most spectacular national park, with the longtime photo enthusiast establishing a connection to the Greater Red Bank Green that’s seen him exhibiting his work at the Art Alliance, the Guild of Creative Art, McKay Imaging Gallery, and Via45 restaurant.
Beginning with an opening reception earlier this month and continuing through April, the photographs of Colin Seitz “beg you to engage your imagination, to feel and smell the salt air,” in a display that commandeers the lobby walls and walkways of Red Bank’s riverfront Oyster Point Hotel.
Employing “a seemingly infinite depth of field” and a knowing eye for the yin/yang interplay of light and shadow, Seitz’s richly textured black-and-white views of natural magnificence (and the occasional detour into the man-made world) stand as an homage of sorts to such classic inspirations as Ansel Adams. But the homage goes beyond what meets the eye, as the digitally proficient lensman has placed an increased emphasis on the very nearly extinct art of film-based shooting and “wet” darkroom techniques.
“I feel it is important to continue to use film and traditional dark room materials,” the artist writes in a statement. “They allow me to communicate what I wish to preserve in an image and its inherent timeliness helps me to convey of a moment and feeling in time, preserved forever.”
It’s an approach that finds both elegantly mathematical symmetry and gloriously abstract chaos in its natural vignettes; rendered almost supernatural through their desaturation of color and their haunting traces of absent-on-picture-day humankind.
Visit the photographer’s website for an online gallery retrospective and additional contact information.
