Libby I love what you said about truth and reality and the mind of the photographer. Your words were in complete sync with what our mutual friend, photographer Candace diCarlo said to me when I spoke with her the other day about her upcoming show at the University of Pennsylvania Library’s Kamin Gallery. DiCarlo, who is a darkroom wizardess, changes the reality of what she’s captured with her camera using a technique that’s like “painting with light” she says. With bromide crystals and light she teases out an image that is a new reality — one that she calls a “spiritual x-ray.” The truth in her images is a kind of shared psychological truth — hers, the models, the viewers. It’s closer to dream truth than to waking truth.
DiCarlo, whose shots of Mutter museum exhibits were included in the book and exhibit at Ricco Maresca Gallery in Chelsea says she’s getting her hands on Photoshop these days and is amazed by the program. But she’s in love with her poetics in the darkroom too and won’t be letting that process go any time soon.
Di Carlo’s twenty-yeaar retrospective opens Oct 10 with a reception at 5:30 pm.
