Elegant lines and classic curves

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, November 8, 2006

Dinah Satterwhite’s new photos explore the machines of yesterday.

An old trumpet might not make beautiful music, but it still makes beautiful art.

Photographer Dinah Satterwhite posed the antique instrument against vintage sheet music, waited for the perfect sunlight, and started snapping. The resulting image is one installment in Satterwhite’s newest series, “Classic Thoughts.”

“Anyone can set up a vase of flowers and click click click – move the light around a little bit,” Satterwhite said. “I like things that are unique, that other people aren’t doing at the moment, that are fresh.”

“Classic Thoughts” is on exhibit at the Bainbridge Performing Arts Gallery for the month of November.

In addition to the elegant trumpet, the nostalgic series includes vintage typewriters, cameras, adding machines, cars, and keys. Satterwhite found some pieces at pawn shops, while others were borrowed from the private collections of family and friends.

“In a way it’s a tribute to the classic machines that we don’t use anymore,” she said. “In their day, they got the job done.”

Satterwhite used film and digital cameras to take the dramatic black and white photographs. Like the trumpet, all subjects were shot in early morning or late afternoon sunlight to maximize the shadowing and contrast.

While Satterwhite’s creative eye worked on positioning, her mind raced with questions: “Is this challenging? Is this different? Am I expressing something? Is there grace in that picture?”

She allowed the form of the classic machines to direct her perspective.

“The old cameras and cars are so beautifully made – the lines and curves, and how they came together,” she said.

Satterwhite’s close-up shots capture vignettes of the elegant lines. She liked to play with the distance, sometimes shooting so close that only the curve of a tire, or the keys of a typewriter, appear in the pictures.

“You have to know your camera,” Satterwhite said.

The “Classic Thoughts” images are also available on Satterwhite’s note cards, each paired with a corresponding quote. Charlie Parker’s colorful words accompany the black and white trumpet: “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.”

Although this is Satterwhite’s first time working with these pieces, she has been experimenting with black and white film since 1997. The medium has become her specialty, and she has incorporated variations on black and white including hand tinting, and image and emulsion transfer.

Always pushing herself to explore novel ideas, Satterwhite releases a new themed series every year. She pulls inspiration from the Northwest landscape, travels, pets, her husband Rob, and their son, Cort.

She is currently using pictures from a family trip to the most northwestern point of Washington as a guide for the photo oils that she layers over the images. She relies on observers’ reactions to gauge new techniques.

“It’s fun to see people enjoy it,” Satterwhite said, “to have produced something for which someone might come to my studio and say, ‘I was given your vineyard picture and it’s on the wall in my kitchen – I see it every day when I cook and it’s so pretty.’

“That just warms my heart.”

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Dinah-mite

“Classic Thoughts” will be on display in the BPA Gallery, Nov. 1-30. Gallery hours are 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, plus one hour prior to each performance. For more information about this exhibit, see www.dinahsatterwhite.com.