Alaska State Museum Temporary Exhibitions

George Provost
Alaska Artist Solo Exhibition

Anchorage photographer George Provost has an exhibition of photographs on view at the Alaska State Museum from November 2, 2001 until January 12, 2002. The exhibition is titled Isle Royale and consists of work done during an artist-in-residence program at Isle Royale National Park, located in Lake Superior between Michigan and Minnesota. The residency took place in the summer of 1998. Much of the imagery focuses on the textures and arrangements of rocks and water.

Provost uses a view camera that makes an 8 x 10 inch negative on a single sheet of film. His black and white prints are often modified through a process called split-toning, which creates a range of subtly-colored tonal values. He makes contact prints from the negatives, meaning the photographic paper is placed in direct contact with the negative, so that the resulting print is the same size as the negative; and he also makes enlargements up to 16 x 20 inches. The enlarged prints are issued in a limited edition of seven prints; the contact prints are limited to twelve.

Provost completed nine years of college including two years of postgraduate work in clinical psychology in order to establish a career to help support his photography. He currently works at Southcentral Counseling Center, a non-profit community mental health agency in Anchorage. He is presently working on a series of portraits of severely and chronically mentally ill persons.

Ken DeRoux interviewed George Provost at the Museum on November 2, 2001.

Ken: Could you speak a little bit about your background? How you got interested in photography, where you've worked, where you studied?

George: OK. I've been really involved with art all my life. When I was a kid I was into painting, and I took some painting classes in college, although I was actually in a seminary, it wasn't an art school. My other passion as a youth was music--still my first passion in art. When I was about nineteen I started playing guitar, and that sort of pushed painting out, and I focused on music for quite awhile. But, after maybe about ten years of that, I wasn't making any money so I said, "I've got to do something where I can make some money," so I said, "I think I could do photography." So I took a class at a junior college in California, about 1986. And I remember developing my first roll of film, making my first contact sheet, and I was hooked. I just loved it. And of course I went immediately to the art side of things and not the commercial side of things, and so it became another thing that I didn't make money at. But ever since then I've been into photography…

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to work in a large format, because when I (enlarged the 35mm negative to 8x10) it deteriorated so much that I knew a bigger format was the way to go. I've been mainly a landscape photographer. I was into backpacking and the wilderness. I did a lot of backpacking in the Sierras, so that made landscape seem the natural way to go. That's what interested me most. I do believe that large format has the greatest advantages in landscape photography, another reason why I have used the 8x10 camera exclusively for more than 10 years. I have another body of work that is in portraits, but landscape has been the primary one…I moved to Anchorage shortly after getting serious about photography, so most of my work has been in Alaska. This exhibit is really the exception.

K: What brought you up to Alaska? Were you from Alaska originally?

G: No. I'm from the Bay Area, but my wife was transferred up here (with her job), and I'd heard about Alaska, and I thought it'd be a great place for doing landscape photography…so I've been working up here from about 1987. As it turns out, Alaska is a great place for wilderness landscape photography. I’ve only been able to scratch the surface so far.

K: You mentioned you were in a seminary?

G: Yeah, that was when I was young. Five years in the seminary and two years in contemplative monasteries. The spiritual side of things has always interested me. And I meditate. I consider my view to be a contemplative view.

K: I liked your statement. It was very Buddhist, about the "chatterbox mind" and things…

G: It's the idea that if you're focusing on seeing, what interferes with seeing? What divides your attention? Because if all your attention could go toward seeing, then you'd really be seeing. Usually it's divided between our thoughts, or various other distractions. So my goal was to be as undistracted as possible - what the Buddhists call "mindfulness." And having two weeks being alone, in solitude, where I could just focus on the photography -- it was great, to have a period of time like that.

K: How did you manage to get the residency at Isle Royale?

G: You have to apply for it. It's competitive. There are a number of National Parks that have artist-in-residence programs. Isle Royale is one of the most competitive. I was right up their alley with what I do, so they gave it to me.

K: It mentioned in your newspaper interview that Ansel Adams was one of your influences, but I don't see that much of Ansel Adams in these prints.

G: Well, I mentioned other names also (to the reporter), Edward Weston, Paul Strand, and others, but that was the one he picked. Ansel Adams was my main influence in terms of technique. I learned basically from his books, he has a series: The Negative, The Print and so on, so basically I'm self-taught through his books. I took a couple more classes in photography and some workshops, but he influenced me the most in terms of technique. But he's not my favorite photographer in terms of an image-maker. However, Ansel’s Denali and Wonder Lake is a classic image and probably my favorite of the mountain.

K: I can see a painter's eye in these photographs. Obviously composition is a strong component, and texture…

G: Yeah, well what's fun for me is working behind the ground glass. It's already a cut to a window, and you can play around with that quite a bit. To me, composition is very important and it is a matter of seeing. I work with the composition until it looks right. I don’t follow any rules of composition. It’s a matter of perception and judgement. Over the years I've drifted toward more intimate, more close-up type photographs than big, wide landscapes. There are some big ones here, but I think the majority are more close-up.

Photography is really an extended process. I can be really excited by what I see on the ground glass. Then I calculate the exposure and expose the film and hope things went well. Later -days, weeks, or months- the film is developed and I have a negative. Then the printing process can begin, then the toning process, then reprinting, and so on. Then after this process I may come to the conclusion that this just doesn’t work and I start over with a new negative. It’s ironic because the ordinary viewer does not realize the process and generally thinks of photography as something that is quick and automated, as compared to painting.

K: There's also a sense of ordering what could be considered a kind of chaotic landscape, especially in the pictures of the rock forms.

G: Yeah, people have said that before about my work. That happens not by my design; I don’t set out to create order. I think the order is already there, and the trick is to see it and then present it as it already is. The boundaries created by the film format also play a role in this apparent "ordering."

K: What about light? These aren't really about dramatic light. When you go out to photograph, are you thinking about light that much, about times of day?

G: I am. Because I usually am trying to reduce contrast. The more contrasty the negative is, the harder it is to print, and I don't want a contrasty print. I want a wide range of midtones…. If it's overcast you have a softer light, not such strong shadows and I prefer that kind of light. But I didn't really have that (at Isle Royale). Most of the time it was pretty bright. And that can be controlled to an extent…to lessen the contrast. I worked pretty much all day, every day, with whatever light I had.

Light is probably the most important element, though it may not be obvious in these photographs, because light is crucial at every stage of the process. We think that we see things, like I can see your face. All I am really seeing is light - reflecting off your face- and what I am seeing is a neurological construction in my brain. I understand what you mean about "dramatic" light though. When I see it I usual let out some kind of exclamation like, "Holy @#%*" and deeply regret missing the photograph. Yet I’ve learned not to try to control it or possess it and let go of it. The whole idea of impermanence is liberating.

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Web posted 11/28/01