Steven Edson

Mr. Edson started photographing in the early 1970s, shooting primarily black-and-white documentary street photography. After graduating from Massachusetts College of Art and Design with a BFA, he became an award-winning and successful freelance photographer contracted for project-based regional, national, and international client projects in editorial, education, corporate design, and advertising campaigns. He currently shows his fine art images in solo and national group shows.

Starting in September 2024, Steve's photographic series, The Art of the Automobile, will be in a solo show for September and October 2024 at the Helen Bumpus Gallery in Duxbury, MA. Another photograph of Steve's, A Sense of Place, was selected for a group juried show at the Pyramid Hill Museum in Hamilton, Ohio, from August through November 2024. Surface Tensions, a study of water surfaces impacted by light, reflections, tides, and currents, will be at the University Place Gallery at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, in September 2024.

Artist Statement

I attempt to describe moments in transition while observing the complexity and vastness of the land within constantly changing conditions. For these brief moments, time stands still for eternity.

In this series of photographs, Where the Gods Come and Go, the sand is my paint, and the tides are my brushes. I explore the convergence of different types and tonalities of sand found on a specific beach on the island of Marthas Vineyard, where waves and tides continually transform the beach, revealing surreal forms and designs into other potential dimensions of reality. What is essentially a monotone palette, my distilling these images into black and white tones further adds to the poetry and starkness of these transient moments.

While this series is similar to many of my images made in diverse places, it is often easy to walk past the details without slowing down and noticing the subtlety and fascinating characteristics that make up our environments. These images celebrate the commonplace and reimagine the "beach" photograph to express hope and darkness through abstraction and minimalism.