The Low Road: Ted Pushinsky
Black and White Photographs Taken While Traveling Outside the United States
Photo Epicenter
San Francisco, CA
10 July – 10 August

by Tonya Warner

“The Low Road” is an exhibition of photographs from San Francisco-based Ted Pushinsky’s travels around the world. The show features images taken throughout Europe, Asia and Mexico, spanning twenty-some odd years. Pushinsky’s skill as a photographer lies in his ability to capture candid moments in very artful compositions. What sets his images apart from other travel-related photographs is the fact that he takes the same approach to these streets as he does in his hometown. These photos are more about capturing people than the “exotic” locales. It is telling that the show does not give information on where any of these were taken, proving that what is most important is composition and content rather than context.

What is striking across most of the images on show are the facial expressions of their subjects, captured quite candidly. In many of Pushinsky’s photos this provides what Barthes called the “punctum”
– such as a little kid eyeing a Terminator-like metal skeleton in a market or a woman lost in the contemplation of a gruesome sculpture while walking through a museum.

Pushinsky’s position ranges from the street observer to the intimate participant, such as in the portrait of a nun crocheting by the window of a train compartment. What rules these images is a sense of luck, of being fortunate to happen upon these scenes and be able to capture them so astutuely. One can only imagine the rolls and rolls of film necessary to arrive at these few gems. This exhibition is well chosen and full of images that seem at once classic and timelessly fascinating.

http://www.photoepicenter.com/
http://www.tedpushinsky.com/frameset.htm
http://www.burgerworldchronicles.com/33/

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