United States
• 1971
Biography
American photographer Chris McCaw is known for his otherworldly and incandescent photographs. By returning to the medium's roots, the artist has successfully created his unique style, for the photographs seem to give the impression of existing out of time. Utilizing only the basic elements of photography McCaw with a large format camera is able to create stark images of his family, seascapes, and landscapes. Today the artist's exceptional, direct contact prints are part of numerous private and public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C, Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Chris McCaw (born in 1971 in Daly City, California) was a teenager when he first fell in love with photography. He began learning everything about the medium, from film spools to chemicals. The immense love and knowledge landed him his first job, taking photos for several skateboard and punk magazines. McCaw studied photographic arts and film production at the De Anza College in California and later earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Art in San Francisco.
McCaw built his first camera right after graduating because he had no money to buy new equipment. What was born out of pure necessity soon became his favorite tool, and he builds and customizes them to this day. For just $150, he bought a 7"x17" camera which he mounted on a handmade stand. McCaw said:
Inspired by photography pioneer Henry Fox Talbot, McCaw's work is pushing the medium in a new direction. Throughout his career, he has traveled to some of the most remote places on Earth, including the Sierras, Arctic Circle, and Galapagos. All the while, he takes great pleasure in capturing unique solar events, such as autumnal equinoxes, solar eclipses, and midnight suns which happen only during the summer solstice north of the Arctic Circle.
The cameras, often customized with lenses typically used for military surveillance, mounted on mobile wagons, use expired film paper. The artist aims the lens directly into the sun and exposes the paper anywhere between 15 min to 24 hours. The overexposed negative produces a positive image because of the effect called solarization. McCaw discovered the entire process by accident when he left the exposure for too long and found burn marks on the paper. Thus the series was born.
McCaw participated in numerous group shows throughout his career, including (2021) at Portland Art Museum and (2020) at NUMU – New Museum Los Gatos in California. In 2018 he had a solo exhibition titled at Candela Books + Gallery in Richmond, and in 2017 at Haines Gallery in San Francisco.
Chris McCaw lives and works in Pacifica, CA.
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