The Cultural Landscape

"My aspirations have remained the same: to document the contemporary cultural landscape and to produce a decent photograph a photograph that acknowledges the medium's allegiance to reality and that preserves for myself and others a unique and honest sense of the subject. The environmental details have been kept to a minimum. The subjects have the frame to themselves and do not compete with context for attention. This provides for a simpler, blunter, more intense encounter with character. It is character that animates the image."

"Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film. Her bestselling collection of Dear Sugar columns, Tiny Beautiful Things, was adapted for a Hulu television show and as a play that continues to be staged in theaters nationwide. Strayed's other books are the critically acclaimed novel Torch and the bestselling collection Brave Enough."

Portraits focus on talented, dedicated, creative people who have contributed to the art, character, and culture of the city and state, including a writer, a museum curator, a visual artist, a musician, and a poet. The photographic approach documents the contemporary cultural landscape and aims to produce images that acknowledge photography's allegiance to reality while preserving an honest sense of each subject. Environmental details are minimized so subjects occupy the frame without competing with context, creating a simpler, more intense encounter with character. Cheryl Strayed is a bestselling author whose Wild reached #1 on the New York Times list and became an Oscar‑nominated film; her books have sold over five million copies. Lloyd DeWitt serves as the Portland Art Museum's Richard and Janet Geary Curator of European & American Art Pre-1930 and has more than two decades' experience in major museums.

Read at www.orartswatch.org