TITLE: The Grand Tour

Photography and travel have been linked since it's invention. The frustration Fox-Talbot experienced with his inability to draw during his nineteenth century "Grand Tour" directly led to his exploration and invention of photography. Photography has always had a unique ability to transform the viewer to another place. No other medium has this ability. My work is often about travel, actual or virtual. 

This body of work evolved from my interest in both travel and the history of photography. This body of work explores ideas of the Picturesque. According to Edmund Burke in his 1757 A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful:

The “Picturesque arose as a mediator between these opposed ideals of beauty and the sublime, showing the possibilities that existed in between these two rationally idealised states.”

The picturesque is of course aimed at the urban viewer. It is nature tamed and seen romantically from afar.

I strongly believe that travel and encountering foreign (at least to me) cultures is the key to expanding human consciousness. Unfortunately, many destinations have become simulacra of themselves. There is no authentic response to Piccadilly Circus, the Eiffel tower or the Statue of Liberty any longer. Those experiences have been mediated by photography. Many places have been "already seen" before you even get there. The choice of the Highlands was an attempt to get away from that “already seen” quality that so many tourist destinations have.

I am interested in the history of photography but not as a temple. Instead as a resource to draw upon for inspiration. My work is heavily informed by the history of photography. I have a relentless and constant curiosity about the conversation that is the history of photography. How can I contribute to, and be included in, that conversation.

AUTHOR: Terry Towery (United States)

Terry Towery bio

Photographer and artist Terry Towery (AKA Timothy Eugene O’Tower) has been exhibiting since 1985 and is currently represented by Art Intersection Gallery. His work is in the permanent collection of The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Harn Museum of Art as well as private collections. He has exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions at such institutions as The Museum of Modern Art, Michael Mazzeo gallery, Peer Gallery, Lyons Weir Gallery, The Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Visual Studies Workshop, University of Notre Dame, Sotheby's NY, DUMBO Arts Center, SUNY Brockport, The Alaska Museum of Art, Quay School of Art in Wanganui New Zealand, the Silicon Gallery in Philadelphia, Central Fine Arts SoHo, the Florida Museum of Fine Arts, the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art (CEPA), The Campos Photography Center, Mississippi State University, University of Northern Iowa, University of Nebraska, The Appleton Art Center, The Instituto Guatemalteco Americano in Guatemala, The University of Gothenberg Sweden and many others.

Selected exhibitions include Remnants at Lightbox Photographic Gallery Astoria Oregon, Still at A Smith Gallery in Austin Texas, Light Sensitive at Art Intersection gallery in Gilbert Arizona,  Making it Up at the Victoria Albert Museum in London, The Recently Uncovered Photographs of Timothy Eugene O’Tower at Michael Mazzeo gallery NYC, Old Media New Visions at the Delaware Center for Contemporary art with Adam Fuss and Sally Mann, and Past is Present at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester.

His work has appeared in numerous publications including: Jill Enfield’s Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes: Popular Historical and Contemporary Techniques, P magazine and Exploring Color Photography: From the Darkroom to the Digital Studio by Robert Hirsch. Additionally, he is working on his fifth (of ten) book in the book of 100 series.

He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Lehman College CUNY and a part time Associate Professor of Photography and Art and Design Studies at Parsons, The New School for Design. Prior teaching appointments have been at the College of Art, Media & Technology and the College of Art and Design Theory and History at Parsons School of Design, and the graduate program in media studies in The New School for Public Engagement in New York City.
Assistant Professor at FIT SUNY, a member of the Graduate Faculty at the New School for Social Research's Media Studies Program, an Instructor of Art at Brooklyn College, an adjunct Assistant Professor at the County College of Morris, and held the graduate research teaching assistantship at The University of Florida.