An Eye for Imagery

One strain of fine art photography takes its roots in the simple art of observation, whereby careful looking turns into artistic process. This idea, not completely removed from the practice of amateur snap-shooting, is that art can be wrought from the mundane with a selective eye and a taste for irony.

At its best, that’s the conceptual crux of the large group photography show at Seven Sainctuaries Galerie in Sherman Oaks. With the telling, punning title “Sightseeing,” the show features work by 16 photographers, split between black and white and color. The two are separated by gallery, as they should be. Although the caliber of work varies widely and the curatorial glue gets thin at times, there is still plenty to admire.

In the black-and-white gallery, the focus is on the idea of photographer as enlightened--or at least alert--traveler, capturing images in the world and on the fly. For Oscar Jimenez Jr., a piece he calls “Space” is a found composition in which a corrugated metal structure, barbed-wire fence and sign with arrow pointing nowhere are aligned into a satisfying, yet mysterious image.

Gustavo Garcia shows a simple image of a sign reading “Pray St.,” with its ironic duality, and concocted the title “The Earth Is a Temple.” The title of J.J. Pope’s “Spokes” isolates one tiny, yet central aspect of an image shot in Amsterdam, of a bike against a riverside railing. Unfettered old world charm and the graceful dance of lines define the work’s appeal.

One of the most striking pieces in the show is Paul Selwyn’s “A Thoughtful Moment,” which adheres to famed photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” theory in its depiction of an elderly man walking in front of a stark white wall between two black-shuttered windows. More than a human-interest study, the range and contrast of forms and tones achieves a kind of purely visual harmony.

Selwyn’s color work is also among the best of that category, which, otherwise, fares less successfully than the black-and-white segment of the show. There’s no decisive moment at work in his tiny floral studies, carefully fabricated in the comforts of a studio. Flowers are viewed awash in apt color--red and pink enveloping a china rose, lavender around a lily-of-the-Nile. As mannered as it sounds on paper, the effect is strangely dreamy.

Color art photography involves a set of values almost completely distinct from black-and-white work. Where the latter transforms and reduces the visible world into a new visual realm, color photography demands a different kind of discerning eye. And so, Josh Elliott’s ethnographic portraits from Africa are less interesting than his “ . . . Speed of Light,” an out-of-focus roadside picture that has been changed into a well-aimed splash of crimson.

Fred Rubik presents clean studio shots of bizarre, shiny metal sculptural objects, including a phallic piece called “Eros/Satyr (Homage to Man Ray).” The pristine presentation, is gleefully sabotaged by the ineffable oddity of the objects he’s fixated on--a surreal tension worthy of Surrealist Man Ray’s unusual scenarios. It’s a sight worth seeing.

*

BE THERE

“Sightseeing,” through July 19 at Seven Sainctuaries Galerie, 14106 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Hours: noon-5 p.m., Wed.-Sun.; (818) 990-7049.