Byron Neslen

Byron Neslen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, but has lived in Phoenix, Arizona since he was six years old. His first camera was a Canonet G-III rangefinder, bought when he was about twelve with money he earned as a paperboy. His father Jared helped him pick it out and always supported the interest — one he had himself. The first class came in the last semester of high school, on a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye.

He received his Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography with a minor in Biology from Arizona State University. He has taught photography at Phoenix College. The work has been published in Arizona Highways, the Arizona Republic, and New Times. It has been shown throughout the Phoenix area and in several galleries for First Friday in downtown Phoenix.

The primary cameras are an Arca-Swiss 4×5 view camera and a Hasselblad 500CM. All of the photographic prints are printed by the artist on a traditional color enlarger. None of the prints are inkjets. The work is traditional landscape and a documentary of the greater Phoenix area.

The Phoenix pictures come from the same instinct as Eugène Atget walking Paris — record the streets while they still look like this. Some of what was photographed no longer exists. That is part of why the work was made. The park work is the other half: returning to the same rim, the same creek, the same maple pool until the light is right.

More of that thinking lives in the journal and on the process page.