Biography
Jeff Spitzer is a photographer who has spent the last 45 years traveling the world, and has taken photographs everywhere except Antartica and Greenland. His preferred genres include landscapes, nighttime low-light/no-flash urban settings, abandoned spaces, and finding the islands of calm beauty among the sea of chaos we call everyday life. Jeff’s first camera was a Herbert George Official Boy Scouts of America (3-way) camera. Growing up, he lived through the 110-camera, Polaroid Instant Camera and early compact digital camera eras. As of this writing, his favorite camera is the Canon DSLR. Jeff is currently working on a long-term project entitled “Disappearing Main Street”; a photoessay documenting the decline of the main thoroughfare in small towns mainly around Oklahoma and Arkansas. Jeff’s work has appeared in a national magazine (American Iron issue #321), multiple local publications, auction items at charitable events, and more than one garage sale. More of his work can be found on Instagram under rusty_bridge_photography, and on Facebook under Rusty Bridge Photography.
Artist Statement
There are pockets of beauty everywhere, we just need to slow down our pace, our breath, and our thoughts, and then learn to look for the beauty around us. For example, State Highway 102 connects the small towns of Waynette and Byars Oklahoma. Part of SH-102 follows an old railroad route, including the railroad bridge that’s now a one-lane road crossing the Canadian River (34.91941o N, 97.05013o W for you Google Earth enthusiasts). The bridge was built in 1902 for the Santa Fe Railroad, and in 2010 was listed on the National Register of Historic places. If only that rusty bridge could talk, what stories would it tell us? That’s what I’m looking for. That’s the beauty I want to find on “roads less travelled”. That’s what I want to share with the viewers of my work. I want to create photographs that hang in people’s homes, photographs that cause the viewer to pause for a couple of breaths, and imagine themselves transported to that place, that moment, that quiet space. If I can give others just a moment to step out of rush of modern life and take in the scene, and experience even a fraction of the peace I felt when I was there photographing it, then I will have achieved my goal.
