Bruce Berenson (American, 1955-2010)
An artist and educator, Bruce Berenson was a portrait photographer specializing in contact-printed, silver gelatin black and white prints from large format negatives. His portraits, taken with an 8×10 view camera in the Four Corners Region of the Southwest(1992-93) and the Delaware Valley Region of the Northeast (1992-2008), are largely commissioned works, depicting individuals and families, formally posed in a way that resonates with the traditions of the medium.
The images convey Mr. Berenson’s ability to find the stillness in his subjects, a necessity given the slow shutter speeds dictated by the late afternoon light he preferred for his sessions. Printed on fiber paper and toned with selenium for archival stability, the portraits have a richness of detail and tone which is both a hallmark of large format photographs, but also reveals Mr. Berenson’s commitment to the quality of his craft.
A graduate of the University of Virginia, Mr. Berenson was raised in Lawrenceville, N.J.and returned to the Princeton, N.J. area in the early 1990′s after living in Los Angeles and the Southwest. While working as a portraitist, he also revived the darkroom photography program at the Arts Council of Princeton, where he taught classes for 20 years. Upon his death in 2010, the Berenson Fund for Darkroom Photography was created to support, promote and broaden the program, which continues to be an integral part of a thriving community arts organization.