Britten Walker

Erie Community College, Orchard Park

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Britten’s prints are striking for their precision, the vividness of the detail, and his attentiveness to tonality and contrast. The compositions are orderly yet organic, usually eschewing architectural rigidity in favor of a response to the subject and forms within the environment. In “Untitled (waterfall and rocks)” the materials of rock, water and flora all find harmony within the frame, the water dissolving into the atmosphere above, the tiers of shale and peat anchor the vapor of trees along the top.

“Rocky Waters” distills much of this into a bare poetic expression – the opening 4-minute chord in "Vorspiel", the prelude of Wagner’s Das Rheingold. The sluggish exposure renders the water as abstract strokes, perpetual motion, a force. Alone near the top third of the frame is the only static subject, a point of rock barely rising above the rush of water. With no reference to context or scale this is a wholly different kind of natural abstraction than that of, say, Edward Weston. Speaking most keenly to senses of sound and kinesis, the image is not formal, but elemental.

Britten also utilizes this awareness of harmony and discord to create visual puns and sleight-of-hand, as in "Untitled (G.E.)". The challenge presented to the student photographers was to photograph typography in a way that would emphasize its pictorial, sculptural and formal characteristics rather than simply repeating existing meaning and context. Here the icon of industry and artifice is blended with the anti-electric, the snares of branches and twigs whose forms are an imperfect symmetry to the vine-like character of the classic logo. Better yet, the luminous branches suddenly appear voltaic, small charges of electricity emitting from the weathered insignia.

I’ve seen a photo of Britten in front of the stark ridges and snow-capped granite peaks. It was taken in Central Afghanistan (though it reminded me of parts of the Eastern Cascades in Washington State I grew up seeing). He’s standing in full combat gear with his gun on its base and tripod and an array of heavy rounds on the ground. We talked for awhile about his experiences, about landscapes and about precision. As a civilian, his heightened awareness of space, environment, and conditions has become an essential part of his creativity.

Britten favors the Nikon FE for most of his work, and most often uses a Nikkor 50/1.4.

Images: 1. "Untitled 1", Gelatin-silver print, 2011; 2. "Untitled", Gelatin-silver print, 2011;  3. "Untitled", Gelatin-silver print, 2011; 4. "Rocky Waters", Gelatin-silver print, 2011;