Oakland photographer, Beth Klentzle, has an eye for quiet moments, for introspection and delicate observation. She is a dedicated black and white photographer, with a number of excellent bodies of work, each reflecting the essence of memory in her Platinum/Palladium prints. One of her series, Fragile Thread, is on exhibition at the Cordon/Potts Gallery in San Francisco through August 8th. Two series are featured below, Fragile Thread, and Jean Street.

“We think of “life” as vibrant and robust, and yet in some ways it is such a fragile thing, only a silken thread connecting us to existence. When it comes to death, we avert our eyes and hush our voices. We do our best to ignore even the smallest of tragedies around us—the final fluttering of a butterfly on the sidewalk, the neglected corner of a garage, the limp, silvery corpse of a fish—so that we never have to feel their loss. Upon deeper scrutiny, the unlikeliest of creatures has its own inherent beauty, even at its moment of death. For this series, I look more closely at death as a calm and ordinary part of every day, revealing its exquisite, heartbreaking beauty.”

“Jean Street. This is where I live now. It is not a real place, but I really live here. I carry with me all the places I have lived, the places I have wanted to live, the places I have imagined. The neighborhood brings its own past, strangely familiar. This is where it blurs.”