Peter Filene
Having grown up in New York City, I’ve always had an urban sensibility. No surprise, then, most of my photographs come from New York and Paris. I’m working on two series.
For the past fifteen years, I have been shooting double exposures in the camera (not made in Photoshop or in the darkroom). After shooting the first image, I cock the shutter on my manual Nikon without advancing the film. Holding in my mind’s eye the shapes and colors of the image waiting behind the shutter, I search for a painting or sculpture to complement it. Then I shoot again.
In other words, the double exposures are born out of the marriage between intention and chance.
Perhaps twenty times out of twenty-four, the outcome is a murky mess. But often enough, an uncanny alchemy occurs. For example, the performers in Seurat’s “Circus” merge with the people walking by the canvas at the Musée d’Orsay.
I am also working on a second series, “Excerpts.” From the original (straight) photographs I enlarge certain details—for example, the arms of a woman in an embrace—into painterly compositions of forms and colors.
My images have won awards in exhibits throughout North Carolina.
