As some of you may know, I truly do enjoy living in Philadelphia. My bio on my website gives you an idea of how I grew up in a South Philadelphia Italian neighborhood. I cherish how I grew up in Philadelphia, and except for a short period, I still feel the same way.
I Have lived in many neighborhoods: Germantown, West Philadelphia, Poweltown Village, Center city, and for the last 23 years, South Philadelphia in the Italian Market. Even though I am a native, Philadelphia wasn’t a major subject early in my career. It wasn’t until in 1996/1997, through my relationship with Alice, that I started seeing Philadelphia in a different light; its physical beauty.
Before then I rarely saw urban photographs that were optimistic and positive about city life. Most were photo journalistic. Even though they were powerful images, they were more exposé on the plight and difficulties of urban life. There was one exception.
It was during a period in 1979-1981, while studying with Ray K Metzker at the Philadelphia College of Art, now The University of The Arts, that I was exposed to another approach to photographing the city. His black and white images of Philadelphia are elegant studies of pattern, shape, silhouette, shadow and highlight. They were neither optimistic or critical. They were about the image .Even though I did not adopt his style, it did open me up to a different.
It was in 1999 that the beauty of Philadelphia started to be expressed in my art. Starting with my images of wintertime in Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia has become my favorite subject.
In the last several months my Philadelphia series has received recognition with two articles written about it; one in The Rittenhouse Magazine,
( http://www.rittenhousemagazine.com), and the other in Art Matters Magazine. If you go to my website and open the “What’s New” page, PDF are available and you will be able to read both of these articles.
I am very excited and proud of the recognition this work has garnered.
Please let me know what you think
Armond Scavo
Amazing view talking about very excited and proud of the recognition this work has garnered at A Word from Armond. Always love this interesting posts.