Silverlens Gallery is pleased to present Frank Callaghan’s latest body of work, Moonshine Baseline. With his work firmly rooted in found nighttime landscapes, Frank Callaghan reveals his visual roots by making his light source his subject matter. These are portraits of the moon hanging on the horizon.

Setting up the found, like a hunter setting up light traps for his camera; his is a meticulous and repetitive process. In previous shows, Stranger, Dwelling, and the hugely popular River of Our Dreams, Callaghan would stalk urban landscapes looking for interesting material to record over long exposures.

This time, he adds the horizon as a constant, as he puts the moon, our earth’s partner, in focus. Decidedly non-random in this process, he says, “There is peace and freedom in structure.” Callaghan has learned to simplify, and by simplifying, the message has become clearer.

As a related gallery event, Frank Callaghan will be hosting a Full Moon Party featuring music by Caliph 8 on November 10, 2011, Thursday, 8pm-midnight.

Words by Isa Lorenzo

The shape of this show started out in two ways.The first was a sort of subtraction of the urban element from the earlier work I have done.This element had tended to introduce layers of complexity into the pictures. Implications connected to squatter areas and social issues.Although I enjoyed trying to balance the tensions in my earlier series, I wanted to see what happened when I simplified things - so when I first recognized this drift in what I was doing - I ran with it and decided subtract the urban from the equation.

The other building block in the beginning was composi- tion. I was playing with positioning the horizon within the frame - like Hiroshi Sugimoto's Seascapes - but with the moon and a lower horizon. But as I began replicating the formula, I started to drift and the rules began the bend, and I found myself instead stretching the limits of what I could change - while keeping the series in balance.

The title of the show reflects these two starting points. I use the word baseline to refer to both the compositional element of the horizon and the desire to simplify the process -> returning to a baseline - recalibration.

So thats the starting point.The rest is better kept unspoken.

- Frank Callaghan
Moonshine Baseline
August 2011

Born in England, Frank Callaghan’s love for photography began while just a boy growing up in Baguio. It wasn’t until after studying finance and management at the Wharton School of Business that he gave into his calling to work as a full-time photographer. He first exhibited his work at the age of 21 in Philadelphia.