Thomas Brennan's Statement, Technical Info, and Bio

I came down from Presque Isle in 1975 to attend the University of Maine at Portland Gorham. My teacher at what would be re-named USM was Richard Procopio, the model for my own teaching over the past 30 years. At the time that I took the three black and white photographs in this show I had been working with Juris Ubans on the third of his Library of Congress shows, a 50 print survey of Walker Evans' photographs from the 1930's. It is clear that Evans' approach to pictorial space was a principal preoccupation when I made these three photographs. To walk through the same spaces today it is striking to realize how the content (and documentary value) of the three images continues to change, as they become less of the present and more of the past.

The black and white photographs are archival pigment prints on Crane paper from scanned 4 x 5 Plus-X film shot with a Calumet camera and a 90 mm Schneider lens. "Congress Street at St. John" and "Preble Street" were taken on October 2nd, 1978 (Sox trivia alert). "Monument Square" is from1978, taken from the Time and Temperature building. I don't believe that I was on the roof, it is more likely that I walked into someone's office and asked permission to photograph from that vantage point.

The color photograph is dated 1978, taken with a Diana camera using Kodacolor film, scanned and printed on Crane paper.

Since 1989 I have been a teacher at the University of Vermont. I can be reached at tbrennan@uvm.edu.