Today we’d like to introduce you to Billy Newman.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I am a full-time fine art photographer. Most of my work is abstracts of nature, and most of my work is placed in homes, offices, hotels and private collections.
It all started in an eight grade creative writing class. I was working on a research paper about the Chattahoochee river and decided to include some photographs. Armed with a Kodak Instamatic camera and embarrassingly chaperoned by my mother, I drifted down the river in a rented inflatable raft. That day, I snapped through a roll of film as the water pulled me along. When I got the prints back, I was awestruck. My hands held the same images that I had seen days earlier. Sorting through the small square photographs, I realized that my life had suddenly changed.
I went on to Episcopal High School, a boarding school in Alexandria VA. There, I studied, played sports, and took pictures, but mostly took pictures – for the yearbook, the newsletter…for whomever. At UNC/Chapel Hill, my plan was to major in physics until I showed a D in that subject. Shooting and working in the Daily Tar Heel darkroom consumed my life. It was time to transfer. At Brooks Institute of Photography, in Santa Barbara CA, I thrived.
Fascinated with the physical and chemical processes of photography, I majored in Color Technology, but my passion for those moments alone with my camera kept burning, so I kept shooting. I moved to New York City where I opened a custom Cibachrome photo lab. During business hours, I made reproduction quality prints for artists such as Andres Serrano and Sandy Skoglund. In the early morning hours or at dusk, I would explore abstract compositions in New York’s urban environs.
Eventually, I left the print-making business and moved back home to Georgia, where I turned my lens to nature. Through forests, meadows, and colorful undergrowth, I found mysterious images that our mundane daily visions overlook.
For the past several years, I have been exploring the intricacies of ice and the unseen life in reflections and refractions. In addition to my print sales, I also teach photographer at Emory ECE and at Univ of West Georgia in Newnan. I am represented by Anne O Art gallery in Buckhead, where my work is always available for viewing.
With my camera, I reveal images unseen through our normal human vision. I explore plants, flowers, ice, light, motion… almost anything in which I can discover new images.
Previous to this body of work, I had been shooting urban abstracts. My photographs were clearly defined and showed exactly what I saw. Then one day, I was photographing architectural details at E. Rivers Elementary school in Atlanta, and I decided to push my camera into a small boxwood to see if I could still see a discernable image. Although the image in the viewfinder was greatly distorted, I could still see the building details.
From that experience, I was intrigued with this new vision and began pressing parts of flowers or plants against the front of my camera lens, while shooting botanicals. Those petals or stems were so close to the lens and so far out of focus, I could no longer see them, but the distortion they provided changed the image. No longer was a flower, just a flower. It was a flower that appeared to vibrate or dissolve away. Realism gave way to impressionism and abstraction.
The ice and water images have different elements of distortion. What is interesting about many of the ice images, is that the focus is not on the surface of the ice. Shifting the focus in front of, or behind the ice surface, reveals images that are only occurring inside my camera lens. I am no longer photographing just the ice. I’m capturing reflections and refractions as the light passes from sun to ice to camera lens. In essence, I am capturing light itself.
I’ve photographed just about everything from sunsets, to sporting events and landscapes. I no longer care to document those images, no matter how spectacular. I want to see the unseen.
We are constantly exploring realms of the unknown: space, science, philosophy, etc… I am no different than the rest of humanity. I simply use the tool I know best, the camera.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
In 1999, when I started shooting in an abstract/impressionistic style, I showed my work to my next-door neighbors in Buckhead, who owned an art consultant business. (Art consultants are essentially galleries that operate from an office instead of a storefront.) The immediately began placing my work in some of the commercial projects they had going on, and they gave me a boost by telling me all their competitors, which would become new clients for me. After that break, I spent the next 17 years, grinding away, knocking on doors (sometimes literally), driving around the country, connecting with dealers and establishing relationships. And as things often happen, I visited a gallery in Serenbe (Chattahoochee Hills), 15 minutes from my house. The first person I spoke to in the gallery was another artist, Logynn. Logynn took one minute to look at my work, then introduced me to Anne Ostholhoff, of Anne O Art. Anne recognized the significance of my work and how the abstract images confound our perceptions of photographic art. Within days of that chance encounter in Serenbe, Anne invited me to be artist-in-residence in her gallery. Since then, Anne has propelled my career by placing my work with prominent collectors in Atlanta.
Please tell us about Billy Newman Photography.
My photography work is unlike anything you have ever seen. It is all photographic. Take a look at my website and you will understand. http://billynewmanphotography.com/
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would not have gotten side-tracked by the photo processing business. From the minute I graduated from photography school, I should have pursued my art with the same passion that I create with.
Contact Info:
- Address: Anne O Art
264 Buckhead Ave.,
Atlanta, GA 30305 - Website: http://billynewmanphotography.com/
- Phone: 404-272-0094
- Email: billynewmanphotography@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/billynphoto/?hl=en
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BillyNewmanPhotography
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
