Eye on PDX: Zachary S. Allen

Zachary Allen moved to Portland more recently than I, which is recent indeed. I knew of his work and I was aware he had studied with Ian Van Coller in Bozeman, Montana, and that Zachary had also assisted Ian in South Africa in 2010. When I found out he was here in PDX I didn’t hesitate to contact him and grab a coffee.

In some ways, Zachary’s work is difficult to feature because much of his work is in-process; he stresses that Roseland (my personal favourite of his portfolios) is a twenty year project! Roseland is about land-use and residential planning in Virginia.

Still, I asked Zachary to pull together some images and pen a quote to introduce himself to the Portland photo scene.

Zachary:

“Over the last couple of years I’ve been making photographs documenting my trips into the landscape. I’ve been attempting to stay away from a strict theme based project, which seems like the only acceptable form of photography these days. I kinda ended up with a bunch of mini projects at the end of three years. These mini projects explore several themes, such as nests, town relocations, and the intersection of nature and human influence, but the main thread has been the idea of being a “photographer” in the field. I’m interested in how we as photographers approach the landscape and interact with it. The photos from In The Field explore both my personal outings into the landscape and trips I have accompanied other photographers on. I think there is something really interesting when several people go out into the field just to have a look.”

Zachary Allen is a photographer, printmaker, and educator currently based in Portland, OR. He can be contacted on zachary@zacharysallen.com. Follow his work: Twitter,  Book Experiments, and Broken Spine, a Tumblr exploring artists’ books.

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Eye on PDX is a continuing, weekly series that features images and brief statements by photographers currently living in Portland, OR.