Jake Shivery: The States Project: Oregon

Jake Shivery: The States Project: Oregon by Heidi KirkpatrickJanuary 28, 2016

1 LS07_Mr. J. Shivery, N. Syracuse, 2006

©Jake Shivery

Jake Shivery caught me off guard at an opening at Newspace Center for Photography. He said “Hey, you are on my list. I want to photograph you”. “OK,” came flying out of my mouth as if I like having my picture taken. I literally turned around to see if someone behind me had spoken. That was the beginning of my relationship with Jake. Jake shoots thoughtful environmental portraits in 8 x 10 format; he doesn’t use a light meter, and he counts on his fingers. Jake is old school. Mr. Shivery is charming; he even got my mother to sit for him twice. He exclusively contact prints, smokes when he shoots, is extremely shy and loves his dog, Daisy.

Jake Shivery is a portraitist based in St. Johns, Oregon. He has been involved in the photo industry for over twenty years, working in many capacities in many places. In 2001, he co-founded Blue Moon Camera and Machine, where he is now the proprietor. Over the past few years, Jake’s large format work has been exhibited in several notable galleries: Basil Hallward Gallery, the Newspace Center for Photography, the Camerawork Gallery, and the Lightbox Gallery in Astoria. Examples of his work may be found in the Regional Arts and Culture Council’s Visual Chronicle of Portland and the Portland Art Museum’s permanent collection of photographs. He lives in St Johns with his dog Daisy.

Contact Portraits

Contact Portraits refers to the technique of printing directly from the negative and producing a print of the same size, in this case, eight inches by ten inches. A long established photographic practice, contact printing does not rely on enlarging, and best maintains the integrity of the original negative. All images are contact printed onto selenium-toned fibre paper for exceptional archivability. The resulting work is heavily influenced by this process–oriented approach: the pieces are still, formative and meditative. These posed portraits represent modern subjects interacting with traditional, craft-based technology, creating a unique set of circumstances that lean toward being simultaneously formal and intimate.