
N41º46.748’ W073º50.793’ 9/6/04 451ft. (Center Light) 2005
From the Functional Ground Series
Introducing Torrance York.
I've been looking closely at these photographs and I think I understand what is happening and why they are so entrancing. Had we looked at these same views, on location, with our own eyes, we would have seen them as a seemless in-focus sweep back and forth from foreground to background. But York uses a shallow depth of field to pinpoint the focus just where she wants in these deep perspectives. She freezes a moment of our normally shifting gaze into one coherent image; looking down the length of a branch, the tip in focus and the rest receding into a haze of form and colors.
She is perhaps capturing something closer to the nature of our attention, rather than our natural sight.

Pods/ Millbrook, NY 10/20/01, 2002
From the Selections Series

Spring/ Pleasant Valley, NY 4/12/98, 1999
From the Selections Series

Blanket Bay/ Glenorchy, New Zealand 5/25/01, 2001
From the Selections Series

Willow/ Glenorchy, New Zealand 5/25/01, 2001
From the Selections Series
In her most recent series, Functional Ground, York explores the visual terrain of a working dairy farm and the roads and fields surrounding it.

N41º46.557’ W073º50.863’ 10/27/01 441ft. (Harvested) 2005
From the Functional Ground Series
In the artist's words: "These photographs depict a perspective seen only via the camera lens. Each image is titled with the date and the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of the point from which it was photographed. Using this data emphasizes the connection between the interpreted image and the physical source. While the images show a natural environment marked by human use, the GPS coordinates refer to my tracks as I photograph this environment throughout the changing seasons."

N41°46.562’ W073°50.901’ 11/23/03 429ft. (Melville Road) 2005
From the Functional Ground Series

N41º46.513’ W073º50.830’ 12/30/03 426ft. (Fence) 2004
From the Functional Ground Series

N41º46.860’ W073º51.742’ 9/24/04 437ft. (Contrails) 2005
From the Functional Ground Series

Front Yard/ Jamestown, NY 4/28/98, 1999
From the Selections Series

Reds/ East Hampton, NY 11/23/01, 2002
From the Selections Series
York's work was most recently included in the Center for Photography at Woodstock's "Photography Now 2006" exhibition curated by Natasha Lunn, photo editor for The New Yorker magazine. It was shown in Woodstock and also at 401 Projects in New York.
All photographs are available as 18” x 18” c-prints, in editions of 10, for $500. Images from the Functional Ground series are also available as 28.5”x 28.5” prints for $750 and images from the Selections Series are available as 24”x 24” prints for $650.
Inquiries? Please contact the artist directly via email.
Thanks Torrance!
Comments (1)
Professional? Hardly!