Photographer Matt Cosby will host his first solo show, beginning August 1 at the Workshop Gallery in Vineyard Haven. The show is titled Greatest Hits and will include a collection of images he shot while working as a photographer for the New York Times, National Geographic, Rolling Stone and others.
“Photography honestly is everything to me,” said Mr. Cosby during an interview in his Vineyard Haven home. “It gives me a reason. It’s my purpose really. It’s everything I think about throughout the day.”
He got his start not in the dark room but on the road.
Growing up in Maine, Mr. Cosby played bass with his high school friends in a rock band called Jeremiah Freed. In 2002, they released a self-titled album with Universal’s Republic Records. For the next decade they would live out a fantasy most teenagers only dream of. For nearly 10 years, the group toured all across the country and, on occasion, performed with Jet and the Strokes.
But, after the band relocated to L.A. they were dropped by the label and Mr. Cosby soon realized it was time to take a different path.
“We had a good run, man,” said Mr. Cosby. “But the reason that was such a big part of my life now was Universal hired a really amazing photographer to shoot our album cover. His name’s Danny Clinch, and he shot that Tupac Rolling Stone cover.”
When he returned to Maine he got a job delivering lobsters.
“When I was in my band, playing bass, it was all I could think about. I was like, this is my life, its so fun, and I felt so much fulfillment,” he said. “Then I started switching when I started shooting on the road with my lobster truck.”
Mr. Cosby would drive all over with a truck full of lobsters and his camera at his side, blasting George Thorogood and Led Zeppelin.
“It was like the perfect stepping stone for me because I was on my own,” he said. “It was so fun.”
Over the years, Mr. Cosby honed his craft while capturing snapshots of the human condition. The images in the show range from shots he took on the Vineyard to those taken during journeys to a Bigfoot Festival in Kentucky, the Mermaid Parade on Coney Island and a UFO Festival in Roswell, New Mexico, which just happened to coincide with the Fourth of July.
He prefers to shoot during blue hour, the short window in time just after the golden hour when the sun has just set. The light is softer then and moodier, he said.
“It’s so simple, but light on a surface reveals form. Without light, we can’t see what we’re looking at,” he said.
The Workshop Gallery is located at 32 Beach Road, Vineyard Haven. The exhibition opens with a reception on August 1, from 5 to 7 p.m., and will be up for the month.
Comments
Comment policy »