By
Maggie Burnett
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Forty years after his rudimentary beginnings as a photographer in New Jersey, UA administrator Harold Jones will celebrate his 60th birthday with his photo series "Seeing Sixty," now showing at the Joseph Gross Gallery.
Jones, associate director of graduate and undergraduate programs for the University of Arizona College of Fine Arts, sees the gallery as a retrospective glimpse into four decades of his work as both a photographer and painter.
Each wall in the gallery represents a decade in his life, displaying only a fraction of the thousands of pictures Jones has taken throughout his career. The pictures were hand-picked by gallery curator Julie Sasse.
"Every picture represents about 20 others just like it," Jones said. "Julie picked them out based on her own feelings and attitudes of what she saw was interesting."
Jones began his journey as an artist printing small pictures in the 60s, carrying with him only a single exposure camera and a lot of patience. He explained that he prefers this type of camera over a typical 35 mm camera due to the higher print quality achieved through the single frame.
"I have to be selective about what I shoot. It's not like a roll of 35 mm film," he said. "This is more labor intensive in order to make the highest quality of prints possible."
Jones pointed out his photos taken in the 60s have a more serious tone, while in the 70s, he inserted wit into his work- a trait his work still possesses.
Fiona McLaren, a Photography senior and a former student of Jones, feels his sense of wry yet subtle humor adds to his work.
"His is the type of work you have to come back to several times and look at it to appreciate his sense of humor," she said. "I like his recent photos. They are very energetic and ethereal."
"Seeing Sixty" begins in the 60s with several pictures bearing sections tinted using simple food dyes. The 70s begin to incorporate more humor and "real-world" photos, including "Diver," a photo of a child jumping into a pool.
In the 90s, Jones introduced iridescent gold acrylic touches into his photos. Each photo on display possesses certain areas of light and dark gold acrylic painted directly onto the photo. The final segment displayed in the 90s series is a group of "Tree Bombs." The trees in the photos - planted outside the National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, N.M. - represent the mushroom cloud seen after an atomic blast.
Jones said he would like his audience to look beyond the surface when viewing his work.
"Each picture is a story. I think the world is made of stories," Jones said. "My job as an artist is to make the story interesting on an aesthetic level beyond the mere information in a picture."
Harold Jones' exhibit, "Seeing Sixty," can be viewed at the Joseph Gross Gallery through Sept. 29.
