Edge of Reality: A Solo Photography Exhibition by Norman Gabitzsch

I was educated to be a scientist with a Ph.D in Physics, but after finishing Post Doctoral work at Los Alamos, New Mexico, I took a position in the research department of a Multi-National Oil company where I did fundamental research to image the interior of the earth. It was here that I learned the fundamentals of signal processing that I now use for photography. I spent a career with this company performing both research and operational oil exploration. It was a great opportunity to travel and see the world.

I am a self taught “artist”. I like to study the work of the Masters both in the Paints and Photography. Painters have the luxury of creating perfect composition and palette with their mind’s eye (there is much to learn from their work), but the photographer has only a short time to find the right composition before the scene changes. The photographer has to develop great instinct and fast non hesitant reactions to do their work outside the studio. This is especially true of Street Photographers. The best way to learn these skills, in my opinion, is go out and take a lot of photographs.

In 2017 over 1.2 trillion photographs were made of the existing world. When one stops to think about it, there are very few things that have not been photographed before. For me I find motivation for photography by looking for the shot that others have overlooked. It may be a new Point of View or a different way of seeing light, or even using light that is not visible to the human eye. I have developed a strong style using the invisible light of infrared photography. For the viewer of the photograph I hope they find something that they have failed to notice before.