March 6, 2012 | DoNArTNeWs

Bruce Kravetz, Photographer, The Mills Artist Studios, Manayunk

Bruce Kravetz and DoN walked along the tow path in Manayunk along the canal, part of the bike trail that leads from Locust Street to Valley Forge, after having coffee at La Colombe on Main Street. Bruce’s photography studio is in The Mill Studios at 123 Leverington Street, an artist’s studio space since the late 1990’s, and the discussion was around his pending presentation of a new work at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center in Fishtown. Geese swam in the low greenish water of the canal, the roar of cars up on the expressway echoed across the valley. “It’s a place you can show your work and talk about it, it’s the first time I’m showing that eighty-five year old nude.”

Bruce Kravetz, Photographer, The Mills Artist Studios, Manayunk

“So, it should be kind of interesting. It’s the first time I’m showing it in public, I’ve shown my wife and my friends and I got their feedback but I’ve never shown it to a group of people. So, this is going to be kind of interesting, I don’t know how they’ll react. The size of the print is actually 44″ by 135”, shot with my Canon EOS 5D Mark II 21.1MP Full Frame CMOS Digital SLR Camera with EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, I printed it myself on my Epson Stylus® Pro 9880.” DoN spoke up like one of the squawking geese, “That’s a lot of paper! And ink! Is this a one shot deal, it must be expensive?”

Bruce Kravetz, Photographer, The Mills Artist Studios, Manayunk

“Well, no, I think the ink figures in at fifty cents a square foot and the paper is about a dollar a foot, it’s not that expensive. If you don’t count the price of the printer. If I can’t be good to myself, be big.” DoN asked about the subject of his project, aging nude female models, posed classically, “I always find for some reason young models are a dime a dozen, and they’re over done..I always find that older people have something to say, they’re not vacuous.”

Bruce Kravetz, Philadelphia Homeless #2, archival pigment print, (photograph courtesy of the artist), the photograph is included in the Photo Review 2011 Competition website.

How long have you been working on this project? “Well, I’d say about three months now. I get some interesting comments when I approach people, I have to be very careful when I approach women, reassuring them that they can have somebody accompany them. I’m having trouble getting models, I like people who look their age. I’m not looking for body-builders, I’m just looking for normal, everyday kind of people, normal wrinkles and normal things that happen to the body as it ages, I find it interesting and exciting. You can intellectualize it up the wazoo; a blank wall or a brick wall that’s old, with moss on it and stuff like that. I feel about it that same ways, it’s a body that has lived.” As Bruce Kravetz and DoN started the steep climb up Leverington Street back to the Mills he said, “And they say things to you with wrinkles and crevices, sagging parts that are certainly more interesting than a Photoshopped young twenty year old.”