Omnibus Art Gallery

Steven Godfrey....
About the Artist

I first learned the Polaroid transfer process, while I was in college for photography at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh (1992-94). The process allows me to print a color Polaroid image onto watercolor paper. I was quite taken with the results of the process and set about learning the intricacies of the art as well as helping other students in learning the process as well. My department head noticed the work that I'd been doing with the process and sent me to some workshops hosted by the Polaroid Corporation. It was through Polaroid that I learned how to do several other unique printing processes utilizing Polaroid films.

While in college I began doing urban exploration. Pittsburgh, at that time, still had a tremendous number of derelict steel mills and other industrial buildings. The presence of these buildings is one of the main reasons that I chose to go to school in Pittsburgh. After college I developed a taste for roadside architecture and discovered that the Polaroid processes lent themselves very well to these subjects. Not long after, I began work exclusively with Polaroids to document both the industrial and roadside architecture in addition to experimenting with other subject matter or settings. I moved back to the area in late 1998, and am currently living in New Columbia, where I’m running a small freelance/fine art photography business.

Artist’s Statement

When a building is abandoned, forgotten, or simply left to its own devices by its owners, then it acquires something of an other worldly quality. It’s a creation of man that’s in the process of reverting back to nature. An "in-between" place as it were. The structure develops a life of its own.

Much of the last decade or so of my life has been spent catching this particular moment in the "lives" of these places. Places that most people never notice, or if they do it’s with a degree of disgust. My perceptions have radically altered by a decade’s worth of rust, moss, and decaying wood & stone. I have found beauty and elegance in places that others instinctively avoid.

Many of the buildings that I document have become like old friends, changing as the years roll on. I return when I can to see how they’ve changed and capture those changes. Sometimes the building has been refurbished, thus gaining a new life and purpose. While this usually renders them unsuitable for my work, it’s nice to know that someone loved the building enough to save it. Other structures aren’t so lucky; they become the victims of the wrecking ball, fires, or vandalism…leaving them to exist only in my images and the memories of others like me.

About the Processes

The images on this disc are either Polaroid transfers (image or emulsion) or they are SX-70/Time Zero manipulations. The Polaroid image transfer is characterized by an overall softening of the image in addition to the rough border left by the transfer process. This technique allows me to produce images onto a variety of porous surfaces, although watercolor paper (Arches 140lb hot press) affords me the most consistent results. The Polaroid emulsion transfer is a process that I rarely use for architectural renderings because of its distorting qualities. This technique involves lifting the emulsion of dyes that make up the image off of its backing then manipulating it producing images with wrinkles, tearing and stretches. SX-70/Time Zero manipulations are square formatted images that are shot in camera and then worked using an array of tools including paper-embossers, clay tools, and plastic silverware. The resulting images have an overall impressionist or painted quality and are difficult to recognize as photographs. There are a large number of variables in these processes including temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure...all of which can affect the final appearance of the print…thus insuring that each Polaroid work is a one of a kind item.

Prints of Steve Godfrey's artwork are available through the artist. Contact Godfrey for more information at:
Nanzydon1@aol.com

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