Wildlife LA: Photography of Henry Cherry
Wildlife LA
PVAC Online Exhibition with HABITAT CALIFORNIA: Flora & Fauna
Most of what happens when I put a camera into use can be blamed on the device. There’s also an old maxim from one of my father’s med school professors that rings out in the work I create, “The antidote to anxiety is action.” If you get your feet moving and look for something to document, sometimes art is the result of that action.
I don’t do much post to an image after a camera captures it. If it comes out, it’s a victory, but if the image fails to fully develop, that might be a message about the process, and there’s nothing about photography that isn’t process-oriented. Sometimes I work with trail cams, sometimes with high-end digital devices and sometimes I use old photographic slides I inherited from family members. But the one thing that is the same is the endless search of angles and light for the chance to preserve a single moment. If the subject is a coyote, I go out and spend time among the coyotes. Whether the subject is an animal, or a car or a person, you have to observe it for a while to get to know how you want to ignite its presence. – Henry Cherry
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Henry Cherry is a teaching artist at Palos Verdes Art Center who teaches photography basics in the John Wessel Photography Program and instructs on behalf of PVAC at The Beacon House. Cherry studied painting and film at Antioch College in Ohio and has worked as a cowhand, a chef, a documentary filmmaker, and a screenwriter. He lives and works in Los Angeles. A documentary about late jazz musician Henry Grimes is in the works.
