BY SYLVIE PEDERSON
In most of the urban landscapes, strong
horizontal lines bisect the entire image, keep-
ing one’s gaze poised over the surface where
often the reflection of trees shimmers in rain-
water pooled over the ice on the ground.
Exceptions are Canal, Kronstadt, where the
focus point is off-center. Converging diago-
nals and the Kazan Church colonnade, where
the eye is drawn in by diagonals and curves,
convey a dynamic sense of direction and
depth.
Another recurrent compositional device is
the use of doors, arches and gateways to frame
his subjects, often further entrances them-
selves. Even then, despite the parallax effect
and diminishing sizes, the perception of depth
is flattened because background and fore-
ground are both sharply in focus. This com-
pression of depth works best when the subject-
matter is abstract: the kaleidoscopic effect of
the Trinity Cathedral dome in the Alexander
Nevsky Monastery complex, the minimalist
abstraction of ship parts at Kronstadt, the intri-
cate motif of a carved door.
Tepfer beautifully captures the cool diffuse
Baltic light, often warmed by the ochres and
golds of the architecture. Between May 1995
and September 2002, Tepfer made six trips to
the Russian city, returning at different times of
year to get different qualities of light: “I strate-
gize where to be for a certain time and timing
is everything.”
All pictures were shot on Ektachrome 100
ASA film and without flash, requiring long
exposures. Taken with a Hasselblad medium-
format camera and printed on Ilfochrome
archival paper, the photographs are crisp and
Window, Birch Tree, Gravestone, photograph
by Gary Tepfer. White Lotus Gallery, 2004.
sharp. The colors, richly saturated and exquis-
itely nuanced, are a visual delight in them-
selves.
Tepfer is among the few color photogra-
phers who do their own darkroom work. This
allows him to control the photographic
process in all its stages.
The project was first conceived as a book
on a part (a section of façade, a dome) or a
to be titled A Foreigner’s View of St.
motif (a door, a vase, a statue), bringing de-
Petersburg. Unfortunately, the Russian state
tailed texture, form and color to the fore.
publisher went out of business. The initial im-
The vast majority of the pictures share a
petus for the project, however, still informs the
similar compositional structure: a frontal view
with a centered object of focus. The square
exhibit.
format reinforces the biaxial symmetry
Gven the documentary
of the image. This static symmetry
nature of the photographs
“ST. PETERSBURG —
imparts a sense of formality and
and the largely unfamil-
THE ESSENCE:
monumentality even to the small
iar terrain, the exhibit
COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS
detail. The intimacy in the detail
would have benefited
BY GARY TEPFER”
is balanced by a decorum of the
greatly from accompa-
r e m a in s a t
subject-matter. The point of view
nying descriptive text.
W h it e L ot u s G al l er y
is detached, and the absence of
Meanwhile,
the
u nt i l Oc t . 3 0.
people contributes a lonely mood.
white overmat surround-
The straight-on frontal view often
ing the photographs creates
results in a flattened perspective. In
the feel of margins on a book
Window, Birch Tree, Gravestone, one of the
page.
few images in which the focus is not centrally
This is documentary photography at its
placed, depth was deliberately collapsed with
best, and we may hope Tepfer finds a publisher
the use of a telephoto lens, creating a flat
able to reproduce these images with their orig-
painterly composition.
ew
inal clarity and vividness of color.
Photography of Gary Tepfer
Sees the soul of the city.
S
t. Petersburg: The Essence,” now
showing at the White Lotus
Gallery, is Gary Tepfer’s first exhi-
bition of urban photography. It focuses on
buildings, landscapes and interiors. As much
as his previous images from the American
West and North Asia, these works showcase
Tepfer’s technical excellence.
Conceived by Peter the Great as a window
into Europe and meant to reflect the tsars’ au-
thority and might, St. Petersburg was built
over the marshland of the Neva Delta between
1703 and 1917 by some of the most outstand-
ing architects from Switzerland, Italy, France,
Britain, Germany and Russia. It displays some
of the finest 18th and 19th century European
architecture: Baroque, neo-Classical, French
Empire, Art Nouveau … palaces, cathedrals,
churches, bridges, triumphal arches, ceremo-
nial columns.
Tepfer’s exhibit title reflects the widely
shared view that the “essence” of St.
“
Petersburg is its architecture. You will find no
trace of Leningrad among Tepfer’s images,
only pre-1917 St. Petersburg. This show is
strictly about the city of stone and brick and
plaster painted in soft watercolor tones, not
merely an homage to glorious architecture but
also an acknowledgement of how the pre-rev-
olutionary city has weathered.
In Tepfer’s images, age has softened it’s
former splendor into a kinder gentility. Time
has muted the arrogance of the city’s gilded
youth. Eroding stone, crumbling plaster, faded
and peeling paint provide gentle, painterly
texture. Conversely, time has enriched the
austere. The concrete wall of a bunker on the
fortress island of Kronstadt becomes a natural
abstract fresco painted with lime, rust and
lichen.
Tepfer seldom provides a view of a build-
ing in its entirety — Chesma Church, showing
one of the few neo-Gothic buildings in the
city, is a notable exception. Instead he focuses
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OCTOBER 21, 2004 57