Peter Juranka

Peter Juranka

I have been expressing myself through photography for 35 years. In the last 4 years photography has become a passion for me and I’ve begun to exhibit and sell my photographs. I’ve held solo exhibitions at the National Press Club (2002 and 2004), Wild Oat (cafe / bakery 2003), Bistro 67 (Toronto, May 2003), and have been part of group exhibitions at Balderson Cheese 2nd floor gallery (2003) and the RA photo gallery (2004). I now have a confirmed exhibition venue for “Contact”, the month long Toronto Festival of Photography and will be applying for inclusion in the Contact lineup and brochures (to be held next May, 2005).

I am also the digital group coordinator for the RA Photoclub (the largest photography club in Ottawa with 245 members of which 115 belong to the digital group). Gord Hopkins, a member of your association, was co-chair of the digital group with me in the previous 2 years (if you need a character reference).

I have never taken any formal courses in photography but am self-taught through reading books, magazines, and running a black and white darkroom in my home. Alas the darkroom hasn’t seen much of me in the last 3 years as I’ve completely switched to digital photography. I now shoot exclusively digitally with a Nikon D70 SLR camera and print my own 9×14 inch inkjet prints. I matt and frame the prints to a final 16×20 size.

Artist’s statement:

I explore the world through the lens of my camera and attempt to reveal the beauty of everyday objects through the use of strong colours and line, via shadows, reflections and bold graphic elements. My hope is to make the ordinary, extraordinary, so that people touched by my photos and going about their everyday lives will occasionally stop… open their eyes and actually see and wonder at the beauty that surrounds them.
I do take Nature shots, and recently I have been experimenting with motion in modern dance photography but my main focus appears to be “Urban” since I eat, sleep and work in the city.
A recent essay on photography squarely puts my shots like “paint and rust” and “crushed Coke can” into the “Trashcan School of Photography”. Though it was meant disparagingly, I embrace this oeuvre.