22/24: Dennis Letbetter - MOSCOW/2

Dennis Letbetter was born in 1954, and is a photographer. Since 1978 he has lived and worked in San Francisco. He was educated at Michigan University from 1972 to 1977. He studied photography on his own. Between 1975 and 77 he was chief photographer for Michigan Free Press. Since 1978 he has been a freelance photographer, and since 1993 – a curator. Since 1977 Letbetter has participated in more than 50 international and 13 personal exhibitions.

http://www.studioletbetter.com/

His exhibition of panoramic photographs MOSCOW x2 is being held simultaneously in Moscow and in two San Francisco galleries: the Bonnafont Gallery the 3A Garage Architecture Gallery.

"Letbetter is a photographer and a pedestrian at the same time. We feel him moving through the streets, looking where he puts his feet, looking at the traffic lights before crossing. He looks at the pavement, he looks at the sky. He starts his city walk in the center of Moscow but he continues in an ever expanding spiral always farther away from the center. At times we feel completely lost in desolate distant suburbs far from the familiar sights of the Kremlin or the Bolshoi, but it is still unmistakably Moscow, and probably the Moscow that most Muscovites know and see more often." (Alain Bertaud)

“To create a genuine panoramic shot it is always necessary for either the camera or the lenses to rotate about the vertical axis throughout the exposure. As a result, one obtains a long, narrow photograph which sometimes takes in the full 360° of the horizon. Then the spectator’s eyes should also make a similar journey from edge to edge of the photographic print. A journey in which the subject may change into its opposite like order into chaos, bustle into tranquillity, light into shadow. And when in the centre of the frame, as if by chance the viewing boundary meets the changeover from one aggregate condition to the other, the frame divides itself in two. In a Linhof 6 õ 17 camera, which combines the proportions of two standard frames, our city appears double. The American photographer and traveller is engaged in this division. And for such a double-faced capital city as Moscow, the method of photographing two in one might be more adequate than a ceremonial panoramic shot of historic views.” (Yu. Avvakumov)