ONLINE: Alan Attie

media release: Alan Attie has had a passion for photography since he had a darkroom in his house as a teenager. He was inspired by his uncle, David Attie, a freelance photographer in New York's City in the '60s and 70s.

His love of black and white photography was rekindled when he discovered the power of digital photography to enhance black and white images.

Alan's day job is biomedical research in the area of diabetes genetics and teaching biochemistry as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Alan is a longtime member of PhotoMidwest. "The Soul in Things" is the PhotoMidwest featured exhibit for November-December.

Alan Attie artist statement?

The Soul in Things was inspired when I watched the movie Nostalgia on an airplane. It has vignettes of people’s relationship to objects. A woman sifts through the ashes of her burned house looking for mementoes, the adult children of a deceased woman comb through her belongings and try to decide what to preserve. It was not an especially good movie, but it nonetheless inspired this photography project.

I ask a simple question, “Do you have an object that has special meaning for you?” I then shoot a portrait of the person with the object and ask for a brief written statement about the meaning of the object.

This project is a work in progress…