About the artist:

Ethereal and impressionistic, Alan Blaustein's black and white photographs of European scenes are evocative of images captured in the last century. More than a reflection of what the European Union is like today, they are a rediscovery of where its soul lives, capturing a contemporary slice of life. In the very shadow nature of these photographs the viewer finds traces of the past, details of things much loved and often overlooked in the usual hustle and bustle of daily life. In harkening back to an earlier time and an earlier photographic style, Alan also has given expression to his own personal photographic vision. Much to his amazement, photographs that he had tucked away in boxes thinking that they had no commercial value are finding an appreciative audience among corporate, advertising and fine art publishing clients. Alan has successfully integrated and applied his fine art photography approach to image making for his commercial photography projects. As a commercial photographer in the San Francisco California Bay Area for over two decades, Alan has developed a successful career shooting for corporate, advertising editorial clients world wide. Alan's fine art photography publishing projects have been successful as wall decor, calendars, books and cards in retail stores. In addition, his hand crafted black and white and sepia fine art prints are sought after by collectors and featured in exhibitions in Museums and Galleries. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions over the past 20 years, including a 120 print retrospective. Internationally, Alan is currently working on several new release projects with publishers from Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, France and Japan featuring his fine art photography imagery. Spanning globally has provided him with a diverse client base, exposing his photographic imagery to new appreciative audiences in many different cultures. Alan holds a BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and an MFA degree from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where he has lectured on photography for 20 years. He also has taught photography classes at the University of San Francisco and City College of San Francisco, California. Alan's excursions to Europe have taken on new interest now that his style of photography has been discovered. For several decades Alan has been capturing images in European parks and gardens. On his European photography excursions Alan still uses large format traditional film cameras photographing preferably in adverse weather. "I see Europe in black-and-white in my mind's eye because it is so old and there is so much stone and texture. When it is cloudy and dreary out, I often photograph all day. The textures and tones I am looking for are depicted delicately when the lighting is soft." Primarily Alan prefers to photograph during the sunrise and sunset hours, as well as at night. This gives his photographs a crisp, clean mood; with perfect detail in the highlights and shadows. Alan's approach, photographic style and sensitivity to lighting help capture the spirit of the architecture and environment in his photography. With several major projects in progress and clients requesting Alan's unique approach and personal vision for their assignments, he is becoming known for a style distinctively his own. Interestingly, it wasn't something he had to go out and invent, it was in him all along. Alan has published over 30 calendar releases and has a book in progress featuring images from parks, gardens, villas, and chateaus in Italy and France. In the past 16 years, Image Conscious publications has released a wide variety of over 200 photography image selections available as lithographic reproductions with sales totaling to over half a million prints. In addition a 2011 release, "Italia", a 54 page photographic agenda book chronicles Alan's recent Italian photographic journeys from the past five years. Alan has also lectured on "Photographing in European Parks and Gardens" at the Common Wealth Club in San Francisco. He has taught photography classes on the following topic's: B/W photography, studio and location lighting, antique photography processes and has lectured on a wide variety of specialized topics at photography workshops in the USA and abroad. Some of Alan's commercial photography projects from the last decade have won awards from: The Western Art Directors Club, The American Advertising Awards, American Graphic Design Awards, How Magazine's Self-Promotion Award, and Print Magazine's Art and Design Annual and Creativity 33.