Greg Turco

Being a photographer in the digital age I often find myself simultaneously explaining a modern process and answering a question as old as photography itself: Is photography art? The answer is yes, but it’s not only art, it is the culmination of art, craft, and science. Or in the words of Henri Cartier-Bresson, “Photography is putting one’s mind, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis.”
My process is a hybrid of the old and the new. I capture all of my images on film, scan the film, and use photo-editing software to color correct and clean the image. I am adamant however about not taking a photograph to a point that wouldn’t be possible using traditional methods. Once the digital file is complete it is printed as a limited edition using archival pigment-based inks on watercolor-style paper producing an image that rivals traditional photographic printing processes in every way.
The process though is the easy part. It is the craft and the science of photography. The difficult part, the part that is impossible to teach, is vision. Seeing the photograph before it is made, realizing the beauty through the lens, and inherently knowing when to release the shutter are the key ingredients in the art of photography. To once again call on the words of Henri Cartier-Bresson, “Once the picture is in the box, I’m not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren’t cooks.”My intrigue lies in the limitations, the parameters inherent to film-based photography. My work inspires and interests me because it exists within the realm of what can’t be done rather than the endless possibilities of modern digital photography. My vocation, my avocation, and my aspiration are all the art of photography.