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Dan Panzenbeck
My interest in photography began very early in life. Pictures have always interested me, but it wasn’t until I was 11 years old when my older brother asked me to help him develop a roll of pictures. It was a crude setup in our 3rd floor bedroom. We practiced for hours in the dark with a blank roll of film becoming tactile-familiar with threading the film into the development tank. Once we had it down, I found it magical when the images started to appear on the blank white paper.
I spent most of my career in the fashion jewelry industry. This required being up on the latest fashions which included knowing the correct color palettes for each of the seasons. To this day color remains an important means of expressing myself and so I tend to gravitate to colorful subject matter.
Composition, shape, form, tonal range, color and the way each color plays off another, texture and pattern are all essential elements in photography as well as in any art form. And while most of us find these terms esoteric, we instinctively know when all these ingredients are working together when we see a piece of art which we like. Likewise, I photograph what appeals to me visually and emotionally. One can always capture the image, but did we capture the emotion which we had when taking the photograph?
I derive such pleasure from photography. My goal is to create something which moves me, whether it reminds me of some childhood experience or expresses an emotion to which I can relate. When someone else finds something in one of my works in which they can relate, there exists a magical bond between us.
