#david lebe

"Scribble 17" 1987, by David Lebe.

You can read the full story of this series on his website, but I'm going to give a portion of it here, mostly because I tear up every time I read it.

"Then, by chance a woman who worked at my gallery stopped by. Her son, a 20 year old hemophiliac, had recently died of AIDS. She looked at the printed and exclaimed, Oh! funeral urns with spirits rising from them. [...] I saw that the clear light filled vessels and the animated lines of light represented a kind of life energy detached from any solid body- spirits without bodies. A representation of the dead."

In the longer piece, Lebe talks about the feeling of futility in creating this series while his friends were dying and no one did anything about it.

Time for another moment of zen.

David Lebe, American, born 1948

Garden Series #26 and #35 - 1979 and 1986

Gelatin silver prints, hand-colored photograms

The medium of photography has fundamentally changed the way we see, understand, and experience the world. From portraits given to family and friends, to snapshots of faraway places—photographs play a role in our lives unlike any other pictorial art form. Happy World Photo Day!

"Campion Sundown," around 2005 (negative); 2015 (print), by David Lebe © David Lebe 

"Daguerrotypist with Camera," 1850s, by Rufus J. Anson 

"Chipping Sparrow, Great Spruce Head Island, Maine," 1977, by Eliot Porter 

"Untitled, Puerto Rico," 1949, by Gordon Parks © Gordon Parks Foundation 

"Martinique," 1980, by Bea Nettles