Skip Bolen is a southern born photographer documenting a type of urban landscape found mostly in the run down and decaying vestiges of an earlier time - the disappearing historic landscape of vintage signs, old water towers, telephone poles, cemeteries, historic architecture and other points of interest in New York City, Los Angeles and across the South primarily his hometown of New Orleans. Often capturing and creating images infused with a romance and nostalgia while using soft light, shadows, careful rendering and exacting geometric choreography so that his images are sometimes balanced on the fulcrum of hyper-realism and complete desolation - thus making the pictures both compelling and disquieting. Skip Bolen's fascination with corrosion, rust, ruins and abandonment reflects a particularly American longing and searching for an era long lost and deeper history. Over the past few years, Skip Bolen has become fascinated with photographing New Orleans culture including jazz and live music, Mardi Gras Indians, Mardi Gras, and cemeteries (and all cemeteries in general) - and while it's a terribly cliched subject, he finds that he is searching for new ways to document and capture them. Another aspect of Skip Bolen's fascination of New Orleans cemeteries comes with documenting and recording what is now remaining since Hurricane Katrina where vandalism has since disrupted and disturbed many of these tombs. He often photographs these with an eye for dramatic soft light often caused by cloudy overcast rainy and stormy days or nights, often returning several times to catch the best mood.
Skip Bolen's photographs are in public and private collections, among them the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, the Louisiana State Museum and the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland. His photography has appeared in various publications including The New York Times, Life, Rolling Stone, Vogue, New York Post, US Weekly, Elle, MTV, VH-1, New York Magazine, Jazz Times, Downbeat, Where New Orleans and many others. Skip Bolen was the unit photographer for HBO's season two finale of "True Blood" and on HBO's pilot "Treme" by David Simon. Skip Bolen is represented internationally by WireImage.com, Getty Images and European PressPhoto Agency.
Skip Bolen's photographs are in public and private collections, among them the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, the Louisiana State Museum and the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland. His photography has appeared in various publications including The New York Times, Life, Rolling Stone, Vogue, New York Post, US Weekly, Elle, MTV, VH-1, New York Magazine, Jazz Times, Downbeat, Where New Orleans and many others. Skip Bolen was the unit photographer for HBO's season two finale of "True Blood" and on HBO's pilot "Treme" by David Simon. Skip Bolen is represented internationally by WireImage.com, Getty Images and European PressPhoto Agency.
