Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/692580
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE ARTIST (AURORA SERIES #9 AND OVER TIME #2); TONY J PHOTOGRAPHY (BEVERLY). OPPOSITE PAGE: BODE HELM R O N A L D B E V E R LY THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR IS DEVELOPING THE NEXT GENERATION OF PHOTOGRAPHERS BY LOOKING TO THE ART FORM'S PAST IN ORDER TO SEE ITS FUTURE. BY KRISTON CAPPS When it comes to photographic techniques, Ronald Beverly, the head of the photography department at Howard University in Washington, DC, is a film purist— except when he isn't. He grounds his own art—and insists that his students ground theirs—in an understanding of traditional practices, darkroom and all, even if 90 percent of the work he is shooting right now is digital. "I'm always accustomed to the complete loop from beginning to end, from image capture to presentation," Beverly says. Consider Nature's Avatar, a kaleidoscopic series of digital giclées (printed on canvas) that look like some- thing Google's DeepDream program might generate. They scan plainly as landscapes and vaguely as natu- ral: rectilinear mandalas that emphasize form, pattern, and fractal geometry. Obviously, these are digital transformations. But Beverly's black-and-white silver gelatin landscape prints are no less sharp and craggy. Still, the 56-year-old artist is clear with his students that he prizes large-format film photography over digi- tal. "It's about craftsmanship first, and your meaning and message later," he says. (Or as he likes to describe the digital-versus-film divide, "The microwave is quicker, but the food doesn't taste as good.") In the end, his over- arching theme remains the same. "My goal," says Beverly, "is to bring to light what we can't see." Ronald Beverly's work will be on display at the MGM National Harbor when it opens this fall. 7100 Oxon Hill Road, Oxon Hill, 844-346-4664; mgmnationalharbor.com. boxlightstudios.prosite.com WA S H I N GTO N , DC ABOVE: Ronald Beverly's digital giclée Over Time #2 (2009), from his Texture series. The photographer prints his own images so viewers get to see his complete vision, "from image capture to presentation." COVER, AT LEFT: Aurora Series #9 (2014), from Beverly's Temporal Kinetics series.