LINK to Washington DC City Paper Interview:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/visual-arts/2014/09/22/julius-kassovic-on-the-zen-of-photographing-one-creek-over-and-over/
INTIMATE WATERSCAPES:
These are close photographs of light reflected on water. They take various forms: as reflections of skies and clouds, trees, and leaves, or as light itself beautifully playing across the waves, illuminating leaves, flowers, grasses and sometimes even water striders. The photographs are often three-dimensional, showing reflections of the sky interacting with movement of water, coupled with elements floating in the waves or on the streambed.
I’m after something you can’t see when standing high on a bank. To find these images, I go down to the water, walk up and down the creek in knee-high rubber boots, and sit on a shower stool, often with my lens inches from the surface. I spend about three hours at a time, quietly searching for magical interplays of water, light, and subject. Mirror-like reflections seen from the bank change as I hunker down, replaced by light that seems to reflect, illuminate, and outline a different, and often luridly colored, world.
My images are not “photoshopped” in the sense of using a computer to create imagined scenes. In these photographs, nothing has been invented or added from another photograph. Because I often shoot in very low light or conditions of glare, I use a computer to process my raw photographic files in order to come as close as possible to the vivid scenes I saw and to present them on paper and on screen as beautifully as the creek constantly does on water.
PHOTOGRAPHIC BIO:
I am a fine-art photographer based in Silver Spring, MD. Since 2005, Sligo Creek (running through Silver Spring and Takoma Park, MD) has been my major muse and subject of my series of photographs Intimate Waterscapes.
My photographic skills were honed by assisting the studio photographer in a museum, by illustrating my ethnographic fieldwork, and by documenting people and projects while working around the world with Peace Corps. Living and working among other peoples and cultures has had a profound effect on my outlook on life, and therefore on my photography. I try to look beyond surface impressions to glimpse underlying images and meaning.
I have exhibited my photographs in juried shows regionally at the University of Maryland in College Park, Penn State University in State College, The Delaplaine Arts Center in Frederick. and the Circle Gallery in Annapolis, and have had solo shows at The Blackrock Center for the Arts in Germantown, VisArts in Rockville and the Adkins Arboretum on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A number of my photographs have also been selected for exhibit in galleries in New York, Vermont, Oregon and California, including a photograph in Best of Nature 2013 at the San Diego Museum of Natural History. In 2019 and again in 2022, three of my photographs were awarded Honorable Mentions in the 13th and 18th Annual Pollux Awards in Barcelona.
In 2016 I was honored to be one of 50 photographers (from 1900 entries) selected to have six photographs included in the book SEEING IN SIXES, published by LensWork and edited by Brooks Jensen and Maureen Gallagher. In 2017, I was selected again. The first year they chose six tree reflection photographs; the next year, it was leaves in the waters of the creek. In 2020, after an international competition, I was chosen to be included in OUR MAGNIFICENT PLANET, Lenswork's book of 300 single, stand-alone, outstanding images of natural beauty. In 2021, I was chosen to be one of two featured photographers published in the journal LENSWORK, covering a selection of fifteen years of my work in Sligo Creek.
RECENT and UPCOMING EXHIBITS
June 15-Sept.7, 2023, Takoma Park MD Civic Center - Celebrating Sligo Creek - 3 artist group exhibit, 15 photos November.9-22, 2022, FotoNostrum Gallery, Barcelona - three photos, all awarded Honorable Mention
May 1-20, 2022, Black Box Gallery, Portland, OR - Framed: Trees and Water - one photo
April 15-May 31, MFA Curve Gallery, Annapolis, MD - Reflections 2022 - one photo
November 18-December 11, 2021, PH21 Photography Gallery, Budapest - 'scapes - two photos
May 5-29, 2021, MFA Curve Gallery, Annapolis, MD - Spring - one photo
October 15-November 30, 2020, MFA Curve Gallery, Annapolis, MD - Elemental - one photo
August 13-September 12, 2020, Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD - American Landscapes - one photo
July 22-August 15, 2020, Gallery B, Bethesda, MD - two photos
July 1- July 20, 2020, BlackBox Gallery, Portland, OR - Framed: Landscape and Architecture - one photo
May 23-June 13, 2020, Auburn Gallery, Los Angeles - Reflections - four photos
January 30-February 29, 2020, Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD - Focal Point - two photos
SOLO EXHIBITS:
2019: Brighton Dam Gallery/WSSC, Brookville, MD
2018: Blackrock Center for the Arts, Germantown, MD
2014: VisArts Commonground Gallery, Rockville, MD
2014: Adkins Arboretum, Centreville, MD
2010: Penn Camera, Washington, DC
2009: Penn Camera, Washington, DC
2008: Sam Abbott Gallery, Takoma Park, MD
2001: Buryzone Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia
1977: Galeria del Lago, Ajijic, Jalisco,Mexico
1973: Anneberg Gallery, San Francisco
GROUP EXHIBITS:
October 7-November 17, 2019, FotoNostrum Gallery, Barcelona - three photos, all awarded Honorable Mention
June 4-July 10, WSSC Headquarters, Laurel, MD
April 27-28, 2019, ArtHop, Takoma Park, MD
April 1-April 25, 2019, Brighton Dam Gallery, WSSC, Brookville, MD - Watershed Photographs
Jan 24-Feb 21, 2019, Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD - Focal Point - Honorable Mention
July 21-August 25, 2018, Blackrock Center for the Arts, Germantown, MD - Natural Abstractions
2017: SEEING IN SIXES, LensWork Publishing; six photographs.
S2016: SEEING IN SIXES, LensWork Publishing; six photographs.
Nov 11–Dec 5, 2017: LightBox Photographic Gallery, Astoria, OR - Nature's Way
July-August, 2017: PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT - Portals
February, 2017: Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD - Focal Point
2017: LightBox Photographic Gallery, Astoria, OR - Nature's Way
2017: PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT - Portals
2017: Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD - Focal Point
2016: Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD - Focal Point
2015: Tate Gallery, Silver Spring, MD
2015: Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD - Focal Point
2015: Bethesda Public Library, Bethesda, MD
2015: Black Box Gallery, Portland, OR - Field Work: Nature and Landscape
2014: Linus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA - The Seasons
2014: Delaplaine Arts Center, Frederick, MD - Focus
2014: PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT: In Praise of Trees
2014: Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD - Focal Point - Honorable Mention
2014: Linus Galleries, Pasadena, CA - 71 Percent
2014: PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT - Looking for the Light
2014: Linus Galleries, Pasadena, CA - Forsaken Nature
2013: Darkroom Gallery, Essex Jct. VT – 5 Elements
2013: San Diego Museum of Art/Artist Guild – Reflections
2013: San Diego Museum of Natural History - Best of Nature 2013
2013: Circle Gallery, Univ. of Md, College Park - Honorable Mention
2013: New York Center For Photographic Art - Honorable Mention
2013: Robeson Gallery, Penn State University, State College, Pennsylvania
2011: Qualia Cafe, Washington, DC - 2011-2017
2010: Old Town Gallery, Takoma Park, MD - 2010-2014
2008: Cafe Bonaparte, Washington, DC
Collections and Publications:
LensWork, No.156, December 2021: Featured Portfolio
Our Magnificent Planet, Lenswork Publishing 2021
Our Magnificent Planet, Lenswork Publishing 2020
Seeing in Sixes, LensWork Publishing, 2017
LINK to Audio Review by Brooks Jensen:
Seeing in Sixes, LensWork Publishing, 2016
Capital One Financial Services, Mclean, VA
Takoma Central Apartments, Takoma Park, MD
City of Takoma Park, MD: Cover, Budget 2009
PRINTS:
All my digital prints are made with pigment inks and on papers that are of archival quality.
PURCHASE PRINTS:
Please contact me directly: juliusATphotojulius.com
PURCHASE BOOKS:
https://www.blurb.com/b/7179505-sligo-creek