Darryl Baird

Darryl Baird follow American, born 1951

Lives in Flint, Michigan, United States

Projects/Portfolios

Post Mortem

Introduction

Pictorial Drawing

Introduction

Since the turn of the 21st century a growing movement in photography have embraced hand-crafted images, ranging from traditional silver prints to 19th century media such as platinum, palladium, collodion, daguerreotype, and gum printing. In each case, the final print medium is carefully considered for its appropriateness to the artist’s intent. Further choices of lens, film type, and camera are equally important parts of the creative process.

These trends are growing despite a massive change to digital technologies within contemporary photographic practice. I am critiquing this trend in my artwork by drawing historical parallels to this period of technological expansion; meant as a polemic on the trend of quickly adopting technologies and the resulting shifts in artistic practice and the relationships to our materials. Should this be considered “normal” social/cultural progress? My work embraces the Pictorialist period for inspiration and methodology, but not subject matter. I’ve concluded I prefer my art employ the medium of photography, rather than a digital technology. I want something I can manipulate and coax a chemical performance from… directed primarily by my intentions and desires for the image, and not a software program controlling the recording of light “data.” With the alleged demise of indexical recording (photographic truth), could there be a better time for a return to allegory and symbolism? Using antiquarian optical tools — specifically soft-focus lenses in combination with a historic printing process, I’m interested in exploring both personal “equivalents” (as crafted by Alfred Steiglitz and Minor White).

My current work begins with landscapes that resemble drawings as much as photographs. I’m happy to reconsider that which photography’s inventor, Sir William Henry Fox-Talbot, termed “photogenic drawing” and look at my compositions with an eye towards the line qualities within each.

I’m creating content that is a balancing act between known and unknown forms, primarily trees and forest-scapes. I’m looking at the subject for gestural qualities and employ focusing techniques with antiquarian optics designed for portraiture that allow for both soft and sharp details, hoping to create a new experience for the viewer. My goal is to give the viewer a minimalistic understanding what is being viewed, but simultaneously introducing a perplexing space that evokes mystery.

Underlying all my imagery is a sense of maturation and aging, a self-portrait of my perspective that looks to natural forms for metaphors of the human life cycle. Most of the images are references to my own life – trials, tribulations, relationships, loss, and the notion that we are all organisms seeking light and survival.

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This series is ongoing. I've driven 20,000+ miles in the past two years traveling across the country (mostly westward)

making photographs of plants, trees, rocks, and weathered surfaces. I'm producing salt and gum-bichromate prints of the images.

To see more, please visit:

http://www.darrylbaird.com/pd.html

Riparian Rites

Introduction

To see more: http://www.darrylbaird.com/rr.html

As the Detroit metropolitan area increases in size, now encompassing a geographic region of 870 square miles, demand for small town life (better schools, less traffic and crime, etc.) has accounted for a particular type of housing demand and development. The computing distance is now over one hour for half of the daily driving workforce, yet the trade-off of land (often with horses), waterfront sites, or just more house for the money have spurred a demand for property in outlaying, former lake-resort communities, like Fenton, Michigan where I live.

A modern environmental irony is represented by this shift, as the usage of waterfront and watershed related properties have increased, so have the problems of maintaining and preserving the natural health and beauty of the landscapes so in demand. The current architectural details of a newly built lake house rivals excesses of inner-urban, high-demand areas – zero-lot boundaries, multi-story designs, large garages (for boats and other recreational vehicles), paved driveways, and finely developed landscape designs. All of these produce unforeseen consequences of contaminating the water, wetlands, and ground water that feed the larger bodies of water. According to current study, pollution in rural areas is shifting from farming to development. From the Center for Disease Control Study of 2004,

“Water quality may be affected in several ways. With better control of "point sources" of water pollution -- factories, sewage treatment plants, and similar facilities -- "non-point source" water pollution has emerged as the major threat to water supplies. Non-point source water pollution occurs when rainfall or snowmelt moves over and through the ground, picking up contaminants and depositing them into surface water \(lakes, rivers, wetlands, and coastal waters\) and groundwater.

Much of this problem is specific to agricultural land, the primary source of contamination by fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides. However, growing form of non-point source pollution include oil, grease, and toxic chemicals from roadways, parking lots, and other surfaces, and sediment from improperly managed construction sites, other areas from which foliage has been cleared, or eroding stream banks. Studies of the movement of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, zinc, and organic waste suggest that suburban development is associated with high loading of these contaminants in nearby surface water.

The two most obvious sources of trouble are inadequate sewage management and yard nutrient (fertilizer) runoff, each contributing to choking growth of aquatic plant life within the lakes and streams themselves and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to combat.

My work covers eight years of documenting the continued development and pollution of the watershed and bodies of water in the outlying areas of southeast Michigan.