Two CB Adams Color Photographs Juried Into Framation's Beyond the Lens XVIII

CB Adams answered the call for entry for Framations Gallery’s XVIII “Beyond the Lens” all-subject, juried exhibit of photographic works in all disciplines. The juror for this year’s exhibition is Michael C. Daft, who believes “Good images should speak for themselves in their own language.” This is the fourth time Adams has works juried into the annual “Beyond the Lens” exhibition.

Adams works primarily in film-based black and white photography, but his art practice includes a consistent amount of color photography, in both film and digital formats.

Such is the case with the two photographs that Daft chose for this exhibition — “Cottontail,” a 20x020 print made with a 1972 Nikon F2 Photomic, 21mm Nikkkor lens and Cinestill 400D film, and “Barn In Landscape,” a 16x20 print made with a Leica M8 and Summicron 50mm lens.

“Cottontail” by CB Adams. Archival photograph from film negative.

Adams often works with the F2, a camera he acquired used from Creve Coeur Camera while he was in high school. It took him close to a year working in the lumber department of Central Hardware to purchase the used body and a new 85mm Nikkor portrait lens, which he still has as well. “Cottontail” was taken during the 2023 Gay Easter Parade in New Orleans, one of Adams’s top-three favorite cities.

“Barn In Landscape” by CB Adams.

The M8 was Leica’s first digital camera, released in 2006. Adams works with the M8 because its sensor and software were designed to yield a Kodachrome-like image. “Barn In Landscape” is a dreamy, Todd Hido-like image of a Missouri barn on a story day.

New Adams Photograph In Yeiser Art Center's 2022 'Art Through the Lens' Show

This year’s Art Through the Lens juried exhibit at the Yeiser Art Center in Paducah, KY marks the third year that a traditional, analogue-created photograph from artist CB Adams has been included. Last year, one of two accepted photographs, “Checkerboards,” was awarded an Honorable Mention.

This year, Nashville-based juror and photographer/artist Carolyn Benedict Fraser chose 52 works for the Art Through the Lens exhibit, including Adams’ “Boyball,” from 598 submissions. Art Through the Lens will be open from Sept. 24 – Nov. 12, 2022 with a closing reception on Nov. 13, 2022 from 1-3 p.m. Yeiser Art Center is located at 200 Broadway, Paducah, KY 42001. Phone: 270.442.2453

“I’m grateful to have been chosen for the third time to be included in this show. Four years ag, one of my photographs made with a toy camera was included. That time, it was gratifying that such a traditional, low-fi photograph could hold its own among the others. Both last year and now, the work has been made with large-format cameras and film, and it’s just as exciting,” Adams said.

Originating in 1975 as the Paducah Summer Festival Photo Competition, Art Through The Lens has grown from a fledgling contest into an international juried exhibition. Over the past 46 years this exhibition has become one of the Mid-South’s most prestigious annual photographic events.

Midwest Review Publishes 'Négatif Endommagé' by CB Adams

Midwest Review 8, a publication of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has published ‘'Négatif Endommagé” by St. Louis-based writer-photographer CB Adams. The French title translates to “damaged negative” because the camera Adams used was experiencing a shutter malfunction.

Negative Endommage, image by CB Adams created with a Diana+ toy camera on medium format film.

“I was surprised when I developed that roll of film,” Adams says. “I was using a Diana+ toy camera, which by itself can product erratic, unpredictable images, and I could tell by the sound of the shutter that something wasn’t right. I’m still not completely sure what happened, but the negatives were significantly overexposed and have a double exposure quality about them. Out of the 12 exposures on that roll, I am pleased with three or four of them, which is a pretty high success rate.”

Midwest Review is an annual literary magazine that features work by writers, photographers, and artists who live in, have lived in, or have spent time in the Midwest—that diverse region of the north-central United States that includes the Great Lakes area and the upper Mississippi River valley, and the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Missouri. The annual publication seeks to publish well-crafted, thoughtful and thought-provoking writing and visual art that examines, interprets and redefines the full spectrum of life, past and present, in the Midwest.

“I am a Missouri artist who spends a great deal of time documenting the City of St. Louis. I am proud to be a St. Louisan, but my work often captures the grittier parts of the greater metropolitan area. I consider much of my work to be a sort of reverse-boosterism because the work depicts aspects of the city that could be — should be — better,” Adams says.

Adams shoots with a variety of cameras, from 35mm to medium- and large format, to capture these scenes. I regularly also use the lo-fi toy cameras like the Diana+, the original 60s-era Diana, and the Holga, as well as a hand-built camera made from components of multiple toy cameras.

“My approach is to match the fidelity of a particular camera with the way it will best render a subject, Sometimes, the aesthetic result that I want can only be — best be — made with a toy camera,” Adams says. "I was pleased to see 'Négatif Endommagé' on the same spread as the poem ‘Winter, Thirty-Seven Years Before His Death’ by Anemone Beaulier because tone — stark and cold — matches the tone of my photograph, even though it is a summer scene.”

Adams is preparing to create a limited number of matted gelatin silver prints, ~8x8 inches, of “Négatif Endommagé.” Contact him through his website for pricing information, www. qwerkyphotography.com/about.

Spread from Midwest Review 8 featuring the work of CB Adams, photographer, and Aneomone Beaulier, poet. Beaulier lives in Fargo, ND, and her poetry has appeared in The Briar Cliff Review, Cimarron Review, Jabberwock Review, The Pinch, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review and elsewhere.