©Terence Falk Click for larger image!

After graduating from The University of Bridgeport with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree
in 1977, Falk embarked on a journey as a photographer.

Falk’s career as a photographer over the past thirty years has ranged from working at a
photo lab specializing in photos of patient’s teeth for orthodontists to shooting
assignments for editorial, corporate and advertising clientele.

Terence also earned a reputation as one of the foremost black and white exhibition
printers. For twenty years Falk printed exhibition quality black and white prints for
photographers such as Philippe Halsman, Inge Morath, Horst, Duane Michals, Richard
Avedon, Rodney Smith and Eva Rubintstein.

In 1986, Falk was awarded an Artist Residency Fellowship at the Virginia Center for
the Creative Arts in Sweet Briar, Virginia and in 1996 he received The Weir Farm
Visiting Artist Fellowship, in Wilton, Connecticut.

Terence has exhibited widely in New England and New York. In 2003 he was chosen as
one of only several photographers, out of nearly one thousand applicants, to exhibit in the
Biennial Exhibition of the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine. This resulted in a
solo exhibition, “Borrowed Light: The Photographs of Terence Falk,” in 2004 at The
Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, Maine.

He has also exhibited at The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield,
Connecticut (1996) and The Fitchburg Museum of Art in Massachusetts (1996) as one of
three photographers cited among the twenty-five top contemporary artists in New
England for their annual “New England/New Talent” exhibition. This summer Terence’s
work was selected for inclusion in The Center for Maine Creative Art’s Biennial
Exhibition.

Along with promoting his own exhibition work, Falk is busy teaching at colleges such
as Paier College of Art in Hamden, Connecticut, The Fashion Institute of Technology in
New York City and at workshops such as International Center of Photography in New
York and The Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, Maine.

In the midst of producing this show, I became fascinated with the similarities as well as the
differences between my older work and more recent images. Through this discovery, the
word passage took on a whole new meaning for me. It started as a literal one, as in The
Passage Series, then grew to include other photographs, which reflect a metaphor for
change and transition.

Familiar threads connect photographs shot decades apart. I continue to be drawn to
subjects that call to me, that are the edge of consciousness. I am not interested in making
socio-conceptual statements, preferring instead to invite the viewer to participate in a
fleeting moment I experienced. My fascination with subjects that have survived continues:
incredible trees, interiors that have inherited the souls of past occupants, and still lifes of
objects that appear to have a life of their own. Shooting in black and white film and printing
in the darkroom continues to be the truest voice for me.

There are changes that have occurred. In the process of learning the view camera, one
can become obsessed with shooting only if the light is absolutely stunning, that everything is
“just right”, contained in perfect harmony within the camera’s groundglass. Recently,
however, I find myself more and more attracted to situations that are less than perfect, but
the energy of the moment is there. What about a subject that I’m attracted to, but the light
is marginal, at best? What about movement during the long exposures? Instead of going
back when everything is “just right”, I feel I must proceed or risk losing entirely. The world
opens itself to me, yet the opportunity is always momentary.

Another change I have noticed in my more recent work is the photographing of what I
call “occurrences”. Instead of isolating an object and abstracting it by removing any
reference to its surroundings, I’m attracted to a narrative relationship between that object
and its environment.

It’s a very surreal experience for me to see work from different parts of my life hanging
next to each other-it feels like a string of dreams collected over the years. By bringing
these images together I hope to convey an ongoing “passage” as a photographer over the
past thirty-five years.

Technical Note:
All images in this show (with the exception of two) are shot with 4”x5” film, using the
same camera I purchased in 1976. The prints are silver gelatin, printed in my darkroom and
were created using various papers from England, France and Japan. They are toned in
selenium in order to protect the image and further intensify the tonalities.
-Terence

All images copyright of the artist.  Please contact the artist to use pictures.