nytimes.com
automontage by David Val Schlink

When: Saturday, June 7 – Friday, October 31, 2008

Where: Saratoga Automobile Museum

110 Avenue of the Pines
Saratoga Springs, NY
Event type: NY Times Autos / Museum Exhibit

The Saratoga Automobile Museum in Saratoga Springs, NY, hosts a personal photographic project, automontage, in its new gallery and orientation theater beginning June 7th, 2008.

Accomplished commercial photographer and automotive enthusiast David Val Schlink, of Morris County, NJ, has selected 30 images of favorite automobiles from the classic era through the 1980s that illustrate his “automontage” concept – the interplay of light and shadow, reflections and surroundings, in the mirror-like surfaces of the world's outstanding cars.

"Photographically, for me, these images that capture both the car and the place, where something of the setting is seen in the automobile’s surfaces, I call automontage. Sometimes the effect is a subtle one, but I love seeing it in these extraordinary cars.”

Although David Val Schlink has photographed cars for 35 years, he began this project in 2000, using digital cameras throughout. The selection on display features motifs printed and framed as pages from an imagined book.

“As I reviewed my automotive ‘take’ of the past eight years, I saw this theme emerge, that of cars reflecting their settings and environments. I liked the effect of these exceptional automobile’s surfaces giving the viewer a sense of place and atmosphere.”

Schlink adds, "automontage is simply my word for what I find to be a visually-transporting effect – these digital images are of motifs as I found and photographed them, with virtually no photo manipulation involved other than to prepare them for printing with the computer."

The exhibition also includes a compelling photographic display of famous cars' steering wheels and instrument panels or, as Schlink describes them, "dashboards I have known and loved."

In addition to his work shooting designer interiors, he enjoys teaching hands-on digital photography workshops, with an emphasis on camera work that delivers a range of subjects "in the best possible light." Schlink’s photography has been featured in Fortune 500 corporate publications, as well as in NJ CEO, Design NJ, New Jersey Home and Style, Hunterdon Life and New York Spaces.

For further information, David can be contacted at www.automontage.com