A LOVE OF IMAGES

Jeane LaRance

FEB 20-27, 2021/EXHIBITION

Zabar Lobby Gallery

Photo collage of pirate Super Mario mural painted on a brick wall

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Photographer and media artist Jeane LaRance was a beloved member of the Key West community until her passing last November. Her generous and adventurous spirit lives forever in her photos. The Studios is pleased to present this breadth of images in her memory–of her beloved Haiti, her adopted hometown of Key West and of Indigenous populations in the American West–captured and rendered with LaRance’s devoted attention.

benefitting The Studios’ Scholarship Program

FROM THE ARTIST

My brother gave me my first camera when I was nine or ten years of age, he bought it in Europe. I don’t remember much about the camera itself it was the pictures that I couldn’t get enough of—and that still holds true. My life is all about photography. In the beginning it was black and white film, I loved being in the darkroom nothing could compare to it and even though I swore I’d never go digital, I rarely shoot film anymore.

I grew up wanting to be a war photographer; occasionally I would come across a magazine with images of war, which scared the hell out of me, but I was completely fascinated by how the photographer was able to show the world what he saw. I think of the early war photographers, of the mid 1800’s, who had nothing but glass plates or metal to make images on. Then in the 1900’s photographers had to carry as much film as possible and return with it to be developed. I mentioned to my brother one time, who was a marine, how I wanted to make photographs of the war, but I would never mention it again.

Finally, after years of playing around with photography and thinking I was a photographer I went to college to study still and moving images. Eventually I earned a Masters Degree in photography and moving images and several awards and certificates in the same field.

For several years I was an event shooter in Santa Fe, NM, covering all Native events and even though my images were published in magazines across the country it still left me wanting. One day I received a call asking me to cover the Disney Summer Films Workshops; that work set me up for doing stills for filmmakers on movie sets. The Disney Summer Films Workshop became my summer gig for the next five years. That same summer I went to Haiti for the first time and my world changed. I found something that would hold my interest and keep me returning time after time no matter what. I was photographing people who had never been photographed before and I loved it! Eventually I started teaching documentary photography to high school students in LaVallée, Haiti and I am now planning to teach older students so they will have visual documentation of their life events for future generations.

I know one thing for sure—I love making photographs—no matter if they are moving or still.

-Jeane LaRance