Visual Storytelling

Photographer Bryan Grigsby captures the ‘Indecisive Moment.’

By: Jillian Kalonick

	Bryan Grigsby’s images of ironic contrasts can be seen at the Peggy Lewis Gallery in Lambertville.

   Clad in sequins as his armor and feathers that seem to fan directly into the clouds, the Mummer appears to be more warrior or god — one part of the traditional Philadelphia parade spectacle singled out by photographer Bryan Grigsby.
   "Philadelphia is a place rich in visual storytelling; that was part of the attraction," says Mr. Grigsby, a native of Gainesville, Fla. "Being an outsider, a Southerner, I tended to look at things here with a different filter. That’s the trick of being a photographer — what you have to do is take an outsider’s look. Art is about seeing things in everyday life other people don’t see."
   A portrait of four Mummers dressed up as Crayola crayons, drinking and posing on the sidewalk, is made more curious by the figure viewing the scene, a slouching man with his hands in his pockets, who might have gone unseen by another pair of eyes.
   "Most pictures have stories that revolve around what’s going on at the moment it’s taken — it’s not the story I’m completely interested in," says Mr. Grigsby, who lives in Bordentown. "There’s always a moment of recognition that has some substance to it that’s beyond the situation it’s taken from…little details reveal the story."
   An exhibit of his photographs, The Indecisive Moment, will be on display at the Peggy Lewis Gallery in Lambertville beginning June 24. Influenced by the photography of artists such as Diane Arbus and Elliott Erwitt, Mr. Grigsby’s eye selects those details, from military re-enactors to faces in the crowd.

   None of the show’s photographs are titled. "When you title something you’re assigning it a meaning before they’ve had a chance to read it," he explains. "I want them to see what they see — some (photographs) have juxtapositions and jokes built in, others are more subtle."
   Mr. Grigsby first picked up a camera in earnest during the Vietnam War. After joining the Army he went to signal school at Fort Monmouth, where he was trained as an audio specialist, then ended up in a documentary film unit in Hawaii. After being trained as a still photographer he spent seven and a half months in Vietnam, and also traveled to Korea and Thailand.
   "The first couple of jobs I realized I had an affinity for it — before my time was up I realized this was what I wanted to do," he says. "It was a learning experience. I wish I had taken more pictures for myself instead of the Army."
   After coming home at age 25 — "Vietnam did not traumatize me," he says — he went back to college, earning a degree in broadcasting from the University of Florida in 1971.
   After working as a staff photographer and chief of photography at the Gainesville Sun and teaching photojournalism, he worked in Springfield, Mo., and finally at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he has appeared in the Sunday magazine and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. As a photo editor he covered the suburbs for many years and now obtains photographs for the national and international sections.
   "It was a gradual thing, a slow evolution," he says. "I had an eye for something other than newspaper photography. There’s a difference between newspaper photography and photojournalism — the Magnum Photo Agency was classic photographers. It had more to do with insight and storytelling than newspaper photography, which is about shooting something as it is and not making any interpretations.
   "The kind of photos that I like to do now are subjective, they have their own points of view. That came to me gradually, studying (Henri Cartier-) Bresson, Diane Arbus, Elliott Erwitt, Garry Winogrand."

	Mr. Grigsby’s images capture the ironies of everyday life. Above, a sad man parades with a happy face balloon.

   His evolution led him to exhibit in group and solo shows, including those at the Steadman Gallery at Rutgers University in Camden, the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and the Noyes Museum in Oceanville. His work is also in the permanent collections at the Harn Museum at the University of Florida, Gainesville, the Steadman Gallery and the Graham Nash Collection in Pasadena, Calif.
   With much of the empathy of Arbus and the playfulness of Erwitt, Mr. Grigsby’s street photographs capture the personalities of the city — such as the grimacing vendor trailed by his own intrusive happy-face balloon. His military re-enactors project, in the works for more than 20 years, investigates a world that intrigued him as a veteran.
   "When I first looked at them I said ‘Why would anyone want to do this?’" says Mr. Grigsby. "I got to know them and respect their views, they are very respectful of wars and veterans. They do World War II, Vietnam, the Spanish American War, the War of 1812…there’s about 18 different war periods done by people in this country."
   His photos capture the inescapable anachronisms but also the solemn scenes of military re-enactment.
   Mr. Grigsby’s more mischievous portraits — such as a woman posing with the Jersey Devil, to whom she bears a remarkable resemblance — require fading a bit into the background.

   "I’ve learned to work very fast. All of these pictures were shot with a 20 mm lens. I carry one camera and one lens — I don’t try to look like a professional photographer. I move in very quickly to make the picture. Sometimes I can divert their attention to shoot past them. People watch other people’s eyes — I’ll look like I’m looking beyond them.
   "Sometimes I don’t understand what I have until I get into the darkroom. Like the Jersey Devil picture…I didn’t realize until afterward there’s the similar angularity and face structure…they were very much alike. That’s part of the process, allowing the intuitive side to react. If I have a feeling, I go with it. It happens a lot of times very fast."
   Having taught off and on for 30 years, Mr. Grigsby emphasized the importance of photography as storytelling. "There’s a close craft between photography and writing," he says. "Photos are seen at one moment, while writing is a process of scanning sentences and paragraphs. Situations that attract a good writer are what good photographs are."
   He explains his philosophy as a photographer as a storyteller might, as an act of selecting and deleting. "Cameras edit down what is in a scene, whereas the eye is constantly scanning the entire area of a scene. Through this editing and cropping process, a situation can be rendered in photographic terms rather than the actual visual circumstances that were there. We see things in three-dimensional terms, whereas the camera reduces things to two dimensions.
   "Photographer Garry Winogrand once said that he photographed things to ‘see how they looked photographed.’ That’s pretty much what I do."
The Indecisive Moment, photography by Bryan Grigsby, will be on exhibit at the Peggy Lewis Gallery, Lambertville Public Library, 6 Lilly St., Lambertville, June 24-Aug. 1. Opening reception: June 26, 6-8 p.m. Gallery hours: Mon.-Thurs. 1-9 p.m., Fri. 1-5 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. For information, call (609) 397-0275.