The Magic City at the Hot Shops

The first exhibition of photographs from my series on South Omaha is up and ready to go at the Hot Shops. The spring open house runs today from 12-8 and Sunday from 12-5. I'm going to do my best to be around for most all of the open house so stop by and say hello.

Framed images are priced at $100 (16x20) and $70 (11x14). If you're interested in the smaller size, please be aware that you will receive a matted image. There was a mix-up in the mats I ordered, so the photographs on display are framed without mats. So it goes.

I'll also have a selection of 6x9" images from the series and some greatest hits for sale for only $30 in a very nice string-tie envelope.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's the artist statement for the project:

The Magic City
Photographs of South Omaha

After being founded in 1884, South Omaha grew to be a city of 8,000 people by 1890 and 30,000 by the time Omaha formally annexed it in 1915. Because of this remarkable growth, South Omaha was nicknamed "The Magic City."

I moved to South Omaha a few years ago and have fallen in love with this area of the city. This photo project is a an exploration of its neighborhoods and a tribute to its rebirth over the last decade. It serves as a visual document of South Omaha's details and landscapes as it exists at this particular moment in history.

I'd like to thank Kate Saroka, Kelly Adams, Les and Deanna Vavak, Jeremy Hanson, Nic and Kaeli Swiercek, and Bill Hess for their help and support in my endeavors.

Pre-show print sale

For the next two weeks, I'll be offering a print sale to help with some of the costs associated with the show at Hot Shops that opens May 5th. William Hess and I will have photographs on display in the Hallway Gallery throughout the month. My images will be from a South Omaha project I've been slowly working on for the past year.

This time around, I thought it would be nice to offer something a little more affordable. So here's the deal...


A 6x9" print of (almost) any image from my Flickr page for only $25. The print will be enclosed in a custom paper envelope and will include a small signed and numbered certificate.

If you'd like the print mailed to you, please add $7 for shipping.

Please email your request to josephvavak (at) gmail.com and I'll send you a Paypal invoice.


And the fine print...

This offer excludes any images in the "Beginnings" set on Flickr.

If you choose a square image, it will be an 8x8" print.

Depending on demand, expect to receive the print at some point between the middle and end of May.

If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a line.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you to everyone for your support. It is always greatly appreciated. I look forward to seeing many friendly faces at the Hot Shops during the Open House weekend on Saturday and Sunday, May 5th and 6th.

For those interested in the ninety-three photobook, I apologize for the delay. Between work, school and this upcoming show, I've had very little time to spare. I plan to get the book ready to go once June gives me more free time.

The end of the road

Every so often in my random travels, I end up in what would best be described as the middle of nowhere. Today, I headed north and found myself in such a place somewhere south of Decatur, Nebraska. The gravel road I was traveling on suddenly disappeared without warning, no "Minimum Maintenance Road" signs to be found, and I would up in the middle of a rather desolate part of the flood plain. The photograph above shows the end of this path, a stop sign attached to a tree in the middle of the barren land.

near Fort Calhoun, Nebraska

Fort Calhoun, Nebraska

Decatur, Nebraska

A few photographs from a rainy afternoon

Random photographs from an afternoon spent wandering immediately north of the Omaha metro area...

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha, Nebraska

near Fort Calhoun, Nebraska

Last summer's flood left a remarkable amount of sand in the area around Boyer Chute near Fort Calhoun. The whole landscape has been transformed into a nearly desert-like appearance complete with ripples in the sand from the wind. As bad as it is, I'm not exactly sure what will become of this land in the future. It will be near impossible to grow any crops and may take many years for this much sand to dissipate. Boyer Chute has always been one of my favorite escapes near Omaha and it just can't seem to catch a break of late. First two or three years of flooding in a row and now this.

near Blair, Nebraska

Sunday afternoon photographs

near Glenwood, Iowa

near Henderson, Iowa

Wales, Iowa

Also visited: Mineola, Macedonia, Elliott and Red Oak.

After the flood

Today was gray and wet, thick with clouds and a cold wind from the north. It seemed the perfect day to spend some time exploring what was left behind when the Missouri River subsided after three months of record flooding. I found gravel roads turned into little more than thick, gray mud and abandoned homes littered with no trespassing signs. The landscape in the floodplain west of Crescent, Iowa is a bit eerie to drive through, especially in dreary weather like this. Everything is dead, whether from the long winter or the brackish sludge left behind by the retreating water.

Unfortunately, the light mist slowly became a steady rain and cut my afternoon short before too long.

The State of the Artist: 2012

Now that 2012 has begun, I thought it would be a good time to talk a little bit about my photographic pursuits and what I have planned for the near future. I now find myself nearing the completion of my bachelor's degree and, with it, the completion of another chapter of my life. What follows are a few plans and insights about my place in this crazy world, camera in hand..

This May marks five years since I first set out to photograph Nebraska for what would become ninety-three. I've developed three goals for the series, one of which I achieved with my first exhibition at Hot Shops in 2010. Next is the publication of all 93 photographs as a photo book. I received the first copy of the book this week and will be finalizing all the little details in the next month or so.

Photo books have been a big influence for me as a photographer. I started with Robert Frank's The Americans and moved from there, finding tremendous amounts of inspiration from image after image displayed in this very intimate artform. Paging through my first attempt, I felt an immense pride in the work, a feeling that I had in many ways lost after sifting through the photographs for so many years. I'm very excited for others to get a chance to see the whole series in this format.

My South Omaha photographs will be titled The Magic City, a nickname that the city earned in the 19th century due to its remarkable rise in population almost overnight. While I'm not sure the project is too near completion at this point, I will be showing many of the images at the Hot Shops Art Center in a small two person show with my friend and photographer William Hess. Our photographs will be on display throughout May with an opening at the Hot Shops' Spring Open House on May 5th and 6th.

The Magic City is similar in a lot of ways to my prior work, a collection of details and random color photographs taken throughout South Omaha. I do feel, however, that the work is different in other ways from what I've done before, building on that foundation and expanding further. This growth is what keeps me growing and coming back to the camera again and again.

The future is still very much in the air. I'm researching a few large projects and hope to have something settled on in the coming months. As I've found before, the best laid plans often are the least productive while the results of happenstance are far more successful. I look forward to stumbling into another subject that consumes me as much as ninety-three has.

For the time being, I'll keep taking other photographs that will be published on my Flickr page, so check back often.

Thank you for your support. 

Frontier County (and more)

Moorefield, Nebraska

 North Platte, Nebraska

near Stockville, Nebraska

I'll spare everyone from more of my ramblings about how fantastic the weather was today. (It was absolutely, completely, spectacularly gorgeous.)

Instead, I've just posted a few photographs from today's proceedings. I visited every town in Frontier County (Curtis, Eustis, Maywood, Moorefield and Stockville) after starting the day in downtown North Platte. This part of the state is rugged and hilly with steep drops to the mostly dry creek beds that meander through the rough terrain. I can only imagine how rough it must get when a bad blizzard blows through this isolated, nearly tree-less place.

Details on ordering ninety-three to follow. Thank you again for stopping by.

Hello, January?

It's not often that Nebraska experiences a January quite like this one. My birthday usually finds itself smack in the middle of the coldest weeks of the year. This winter, in quite unusual fashion, has been anything but cold. Outside of a little snow in early December and two or three days with single degree lows, the weather has been just fantastic. Tomorrow promises a high above fifty degrees.

I've decided to take advantage of mother nature's generosity and head west for a quick overnight trip in honor of the beginning of my thirty-third (!) year. While putting together the ninety-three photo book, I realized that there was one county that I just wasn't 100% satisfied with. I'll be revisiting that county again tomorrow and hope to have the book available for purchase in the next few months before the Hot Shops show in May.

Pictured above are the sandhills just north of Brady, Nebraska. I am forever finding myself drawn to the sandhills' space and isolation.

Also visited: Lexington, Darr, Cozad, Willow Island, Gothenberg, Maxwell and North Platte.

New photographs for a new year

Today begins yet another year. It may be what amounts to a mostly symbolic fresh start, but I'll take it nonetheless. As always, I'm reminded that I must always move forward and find time to be creative as much as possible. And remember to be happy, even in the face of an always-hectic world rushing by.

What follows are twelve photographs for the first day of 2012. I spent this mild, yet extremely windy, holiday in the Loess Hills region of western Iowa. I'd like to think it's a good start on what will hopefully be a fantastic year of image making and discovery. 

Happy New Year, everyone.

Five: Songs from 2011

Big Harp - Everybody Pays



William Elliott Whitmore - Everything Gets Gone



Wilco - Art Of Almost



The Mountain Goats - High Hawk Season



Tom Waits - Kiss Me

Keeping busy

It's been over a month since I last posted anything on this blog. While I've been busy with work and school, I have also spent quite a bit of time photographing South Omaha. The lack of immediacy from shooting film doesn't really allow for consistent blog entries with photographs.

I am looking forward to revealing much of the South Omaha project at the Hot Shops Art Center in Omaha this coming May. The winter will be spent scanning negatives and organizing the series. I'll have more news soon.

Pictured above is the view of the Veteran's Memorial Bridge and Missouri River from Mandan Park.


---------------------------------------------------------


ninety-three is nearing completion in book form. I've been sequencing the photographs and working on getting a cover design figured out. The book should be available from Blurb in the next few months.