September-October
2008
Applegater
2 22 January
- February 2007
Applegater
Photographic documentary of
life in the Applegate Valley
BY MELISSA B. FISCHER
Ashley Valmere Fischer,
an alumna of the Tisch School
of Photography & Imaging at
New York University, spent
the summer of 2007 getting to
know people living in the McKee
Bridge area of the Applegate and
chronicling their life with her
camera. She really got at the heart
of the place, and the McKee
Bridge Project was exhibited
on Broadway in New York City
this last winter. Photos from
the Applegate Valley were so
well regarded in the Big Apple,
that Ashley was subsequently
awarded a grant to continue this
project in the coming year.
The McKee Bridge photo-
documentary exhibit consisted
of 32 photographs showing
life in the valley—boys playing
on the Applegate River; men
playing dominoes at the McKee
Bridge Park and goat farmers
going about their milking chores.
Some photos were just truly
beautiful—a late afternoon view
of the valley from Woodrat
Mountain, and Applegate Lake
on a cloudy day. Accompanying
the photos were Ashley’s notes
about the experience, “Here I
am, a stranger whom the locals
have accepted, like the heat at
noon on a summer day.”
The exhibit was on display
January 24 to February 16, 2008
at New York University’s Tisch
School of the Arts on Broadway.
As the 2008 recipient of the
Rosenberg Grant, Ashley will
hold another exhibit with her
continued work on the Applegate
Valley in the Fall of 2009.
Ashley is establishing
herself as a documentar y
photographer of some talent.
In 2007 she won an award
from SIT Study Abroad South
America for her photographs
from that region. She is now
digital assistant for Susan
Meiselas of Magnum Photos, a
very prestigious photographic
cooperative established in 1947
in Europe. Magnum is now
worldwide.
The McKee Bridge
Project, and other collections,
can be seen on Ashley’s web site,
www.ashleyvalmere.com
From Ashley’s notes –
“ The air smells like smoke
and rain,
forest fires on a cloudy day.
Whatever we need,
we build with our hands.
Either the solitude has made
us crazy,
or the mountains have made
us wise.
Melissa B. Fischer
541-899-1768
“While there is perhaps a province in which
the photograph can tell us nothing more than
what we see with our own eyes, there is another
in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit
us to see.”
~Dorothea Lange