interior exposure

with a title like Interior Exposure, you knew it wouldn't be long until i posted about Jessica Todd Harper's work. i had seen one of her photos on Conscientious a few weeks ago, but hadn't clicked through to her site because the photo featured there seemed pretty and bland to me like a wedding commission. well, i was wrong not to investigate further, because for a series that features the photographers family and friends, Harper's is really more interesting than most. most of the photographs in Interior Exposure are portraits of her family, especially the women in her family, hanging out together.

at first, i thought many of the compositions were a bit jumbled, too much like a messy living room, like real life. but i think they really build with succession, and i realized she was doing interesting things with layering the people, the poses, the objects, the surroundings―and yes, the mixed light in long interior exposures.

her work has been called painterly, and i definitely see that. however, the International Center for Photography's blurb also says that her work "harks back" to "the contemporary photography of Andrew Wyeth..." come again?

she'll be signing copies at ICP on June 6th.