John Chiara: Mississippi / photograph mag
“Using his truck-mounted camera, he captured numerous landscapes, some bleak and foreboding, with bare trees and brown grasses, others with leafy trees overgrown with kudzu, the sound of cicadas almost audible and the blanket of humidity palpable.
To create his one-of-a-kind photographs, Chiara tapes photographic paper to the interior wall of his camera and exposes it for up to 20 minutes. In some cases, the long exposure results in an unnatural palette and a brightness that is quite different from the one he encountered in the actual landscape. Each photograph takes on an overall hue, like monochromatic jewels. The tape marks are visible, the paper’s edges often uneven, and it is this very hands-on quality that imbues the photographs with a time-worn quality. Certain scenes suggest ancient forests or bogs, while other prints resemble faded photos from the 1970s.
To his credit, Chiara didn’t fall victim to the temptation of other artists visiting the South, who are easily drawn to stereotypical scenes of the rural poor and rundown structures. Chiara instead seems to be searching for something less tangible—something that, like the phantoms captured in so-called “ghost photography,” seeks to capture the soul of a place.”