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Whether
traveling to a foreign land, wandering through a neighborhood market
to shop for food, or engaging in convivial conversation with a friend
at his home,
David Halliday is easily charmed, intrigued, excited, or amused by all
that surrounds
him. An artful documenter of life, Haliday uses his camera as a tool for
recording the
multitudinous special moments that capture his attention. Once in the
darkroom, he
editorializes his finds, subtly embellishing each image until it somehow
evokes the
sensation that led him to photograph a subject in the first place.
With the exception of a series of platinum
print portraits, Halliday produces all of his
photographs as sepia toned silver gelatin prints. Both processes are
highly trad-
itional and, in requiring that the artist avoid the use of any color
other than sepia,
they stand in sharp contrast to splashier modes such as Cibachrome,
Polaroid, or
digitally produced Iris prints […]. For Halliday, the warm tones afforded
by age-old
processes reflect his desire to reclaim the past or cherish the present
in the form of
soft, tranquil, frozen moments in time.
Concurrent with his preoccupation with objects
and still life arrangements, Halliday
has photographed a considerable range of landscape settings, having
travelled not
only to Tonga, but also to such varied locales as Portugal, Iceland,
Indonesia, and
Ireland. Additionally, the Louisiana countryside not far from his home
in New Orleans
and the beaches of Massachusetts, where he has friends and family, have
provided
him with endless stimuli for his camera's lense.
Establishing intimate connections with his
subjects has always been important for
Halliday, whether photographing the exotic residents of Tonga or youthful
high school
bands preparing for the annual Mardi Gras in New Orleans. As with objects
or places,
he photographs the inhabitants of the planet with unbridled reverence
for the beauty
and value of life. And lest time pass too quickly, Halliday will continue
to use his
camera to slow it down ever so much…just enough to freeze it for eternity.
(excerpt from an essay by David S. Rubin for the catalog of the exhibition
When Time
Stands Still. The Photographs of David Halliday at the Contemporary
Art Center,
New Orleans, July 13 - September 15, 2002)
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