Biography
Joseph Ptacek is a self-taught photographer living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a former nonprofit executive whose career path also included many years as a marketing agent for NFL players. A journeyman photographer whose first visit to Japan in the 1970’s inspired a love of black & white film images, he spends a lot of time driving to locations in the Southwest and visiting other countries. Recent countries visited include Uruguay, Japan, Spain and Mexico. He uses medium format film cameras; a Hasselblad 500 C/M and a Fujica GW 690.
“We always see in color. No wonder black and white analog photography is so seductive to me. Black and white photography suggests rather than articulates a moment. Instead of capturing a moment exactly as we see it, it diminishes what we see, making our imagination work harder.
And it is an intimate art form. For me, it can evoke a sense of timelessness. When I compose a black and white image, I often think about how that composition might have looked decades or even centuries earlier. When I study old black and white photos, I always have the feeling of glimpsing moments in the past…like a voyeur imagining the daily lives of others now long gone.”
Exhibitions curated into:
The Viewpoint: Landscape and Architecture Exhibition at Black Box Gallery, for “Cedar Grove on the Nakasendo Trail” in 2019.
Nominee at the 15th Annual Black & White Spider Awards: Nominee in Architecture for “Blessed Adobe” in 2020.
Camera Work: Landscape and Architecture Exhibition at Black Box Gallery for “Death Valley Passage” in 2020.
Analog Forever's online group exhibition “Memories in Artifacts” for “Boots and Rifle” in 2020 and its group exhibition “I Used To Travel” for “Tsumago” in 2021.