Low Fidelity

Plastic and pinhole camera work by seven regional photographers

January 7th – February 28th 2010

Low Fidelity showcases the work of seven regional photographers who make art with plastic, pinhole and Polaroid cameras. These photographers use simple, inexpensive toy and hand-made cameras, which can produce blurred images, over-saturated colors, light leaks, and other ‘happy accidents’, to create a dreamlike ‘low-fidelity’ aesthetic in their work. Each artist uses a different approach and printing process to create their photographs.

Photographers exhibiting include Gina Costa (Lomography), Jacqueline Dickey (Polaroid transfers), Ruth Droppo (pinhole prints), Bill Healy (Holga silver prints), James Kellar (archival pigment prints), Craig Sheaks (Holga C-prints) and Bill Vaccaro (platinum Ziatypes).

Bill Vaccaro (Chicago, IL)

Bill shoots almost exclusively with toy cameras, medium format view cameras, and obscure (and not so obscure) film cameras modified with homemade shift-tilt lenses culled from cheap loupes, crappy magnifying glasses, and battered enlarging lenses, bellows torn from old Polaroid cameras, used extension tubes, and gobs of black gaffers tape. His Gateway series is printed using an alternative process called a Ziatype.

Bill’s work has been exhibited nationally and is currently represented by wallspace gallery in Seattle in their Studio collection. Twelve images from his “Jesus Is On The Mainline” series were recently chosen by juror Rixon Reed to be exhibited and published in the Center for Fine Art Photography’s publication, Artists’ Showcase Portfolio, 2nd edition. His images have been featured in publications such as F-Stop, SHOTS, Light Leaks, Love, Chicago, and Other. His photos have also appeared online in Flak Photo, File Magazine, and mooncruise.com.  He holds bachelor and masters degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Craig Sheaks (South Bend IN)

Craig M. Sheaks has exhibited his photography throughout the U.S. and has been published in Camera Arts and Black & White magazine. Currently he is Professor of Photography at Ivy Tech Community College in South Bend, IN.

James Kellar (Bloomington IN)

James Kellar is a freelance photographer in Bloomington Indiana. He has studied at Indiana University, Ivy Tech Community College, The Graphic Arts Technical Foundations in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and the The Santa Fe Workshops in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he studied under Paul Aresu, and Andrew Rodney. His work has been shown throughout South Central Indiana.

He was the founder and former director of the Pinhole Photography Internet Discussion List.  He has been a member of the Bloomington Photography Club for over twenty years, where he has served as President, and now sits on its board and manages the club’s website and email list.

James has always had an interest in using “low-tech” cameras, such as the Holga. In this series of portraits he took photographs with a DSLR camera and used computer software to manipulate the file to mimic the look and feel of the Holga.

Bill Healy (South Bend IN)

Bill Healy is a member of Northern Indiana Artists and presently serves as Board President of Fire Arts Inc. Photography is just one of the many mediums he uses to create — he also manages the life drawing group at Indiana University South Bend. In 2008 his work was part of a two-person exhibit at the Studio Arts Center, South Bend, and he was awarded Best Work in 2D at the Juried Regional at Carnegie Center for Arts, Three Rivers, MI.

Ruth Droppo (Bloomington IN)

Ruth Droppo has an MFA degree in Printmaking from Indiana University, Hope School of Fine Arts and has exhibited her pinhole work internationally.  In 2006 she received a Indiana Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant to work on a pinhole project titled “Cities of Refuge”, which involved Sudanese refugees.

The work she is exhibiting is from her “birthright” series, a collaboration with composer Michael Mattner. This multimedia work that addresses how women pass on information by means of gesture, tone of voice, and story-telling, using cookbooks as a metaphor for making. The five-part piece includes original music, voice recordings, pinhole photography, and silver photography for output to VHS/DVD and archival pigment prints.

Jacqueline Dickey (South Bend IN)

Jacqueline Dickey has exhibited widely in the Michiana area and been winning awards for her art for 17 years.  Most recently, her Polaroid transfer series was featured at the South Bend Regional Museum of Art and the Carnegie Center for the Arts in Three Rivers, Michigan. Her piece “Left in the Rain” was chosen for the cover of poet Nancy Botkin’s book, Parts That Were Once Whole by Mayapple Press.  She is also a published and award winning poet and world percussionist.

Gina Costa (South Bend IN)

Raised in Northern Italy, Gina Costa began her study of art as a young girl while traveling the art capitals of the world with her parents.  From an early age, she began to take pictures, using her mother’s Kodak Brownie. Trained as an architect, Gina has always favoured images focusing on architectural details or urban spaces. In 2006 Gina began her foray into Lomography.  She received a vintage LCA as a gift, and was instructed to “don’t think, just shoot”  (The lomographer’s mantra). Gina is currently a curator of Mexican Graphics at the Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame.