Art News:

The Karen Wray Gallery in downtown Los Alamos invites the community to “Phillip Noll, The Four Corners: A Photographic Exhibition,” Oct. 20 through Nov. 19 with an Opening Reception 5-7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20.

For award-winning photographer Phillip Noll, “four corners” has many meanings. For the past two decades Phillip has been building a portfolio of images representing “The Four Corners.”  Predominantly from the Colorado Plateau, these images will take you on a visual journey from deserts to forests, from mountains to canyons, from red rocks to waterfalls, and from the grand landscape to tiny details.

“The photographs in this exhibition represent the amazing beauty of this region of the United States. The Four Corners area is absolutely filled with breathtaking scenery. All you have to do is look for it,” Noll said.

National Geographic photographer David Alan Harvey once said, “Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.”  But how does one shoot what it feels like? 

According to Noll it takes dedication, respect, awareness, skill, and patience.

“You have to go back to the same place over and over and become familiar with its moods, how the light changes, and what plants and animals live there,” Noll said. “You have to shoot under many different weather conditions and at different times of the day or year. You have to decide what angle to shoot from, how to compose the scene, what to include, and what to exclude. This attention to detail and familiarity with a place will allow you to come closer to capturing what it feels like.”

Noll work’s to bring the viewer into the photo, if only for a moment, to let the the landscape touch them emotionally.

Noll’s goals as a nature and landscape photographer are to raise awareness of the natural world and to inspire people to help protect our beautiful wild places that seem to be disappearing at an alarming rate.

As Edward Abbey once said, “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.” 

Noll feels that, “We need to have wild, untamed lands where we can go to decompress, to regain perspective, to reconnect with something larger than ourselves, and to refresh the soul.” 

He wants to show people how beautiful our planet is and that conservation and protection of the land are worthy and important goals.

Noll has been photographing nature and the landscape for more than 35 years. His photographs have won several awards in international competitions and have been published in several magazines including Outdoor Photographer, Arizona Highways, Landscape Photography Magazine, Backpacker Magazine, and Nature’s Best Photography. One of Noll’s photos was on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. from Sept. 3, 2014 through summer 2015. Phillip also created the large floor-to-ceiling backdrops for the displays at the Los Alamos Nature Center. He shoots exclusively with digital cameras made by Sony and Canon.

The Opening Reception for “Phillip Noll – Four Corners, a Photographic Exhibition” is 5-7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20 at The Karen Wray Gallery, 1247 Central Avenue, Suite D-2. The exhibition runs from Oct. 20 through Nov. 19.