Sample Photographs

Book Project Description

“Darkland” is a fine art night photography book focused on climate change in Greenland. The goal is to document transformation and loss among the rapidly receding glaciers and sites of cultural shifts in the remote arctic.

The work combines both documentary and narrative photographic traditions; the approach is personal and intuitive. Images were made of melting glaciers, the scarred landscape left in their wake, newly formed rivers from the ancient ice melt, shrinking icebergs and ice floes and vast, empty landscapes with traces of human intervention–all taken at dawn, twilight, or nighttime.

Since climate change is difficult to grasp, it is my sincere hope that evocative and beautiful photographs of the changing primordial land will gain widespread interest and lead to governmental changes.

A crucial part of my process is making images in complete darkness with extremely long exposures of an hour or more. Since it is nearly impossible to see through the viewfinder at night, I instead stand beside the camera, “feeling” the image and intuitively framing it in the dark. Beyond documentation, however, these photographs crystallize a feeling of inertia taking place in the landscape of Greenland.

About Steve Giovinco

Steve Giovinco is a New York-based photographer. Tracing environmental change, his work focuses on eerie long exposure night landscape images. Public and private collections including his photographs are the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the California Museum of Photography. Exhibitions of his work include the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia; Winnipeg Art Gallery; White Columns; Sadler’s Wells, London; Gyeongnam Art Museum, Korea. He’s a Fulbright Fellow Alternate, attended artist residencies at Yaddo, and received numerous grants. He was commissioned by one of the first blockchain art platforms, Monegraph, a photo was included in Summertime, published by Chronicle Books, and he has made several artist books. Giovinco earned an MFA from Yale University.

Comps

Surprisingly, there are no current landscape or fine art photography books focused on Greenland or the Arctic; there none made exclusively at night, so this would be unique.

Some related titles on glaciers and night photography are:

• Robert Adams, Summer Nights, Walking: Along the Colorado Front Range 1976-1982
• Lynn Davis, Ice: 1986-2007
• James Balog, Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers
• Barbara Bosworth: The Heavens
• Todd Hido, Bright Black World
• Matthew Pillsbury: City Stages
• Dirk Braeckman, Chiaroscuro

Book Design

Images: 60 to 65

Pages: 120 to 140

Size: 12 x 9 to 14 x 11 inches

Price: $45-60

Although I’ve crafted a PDF mockup, I am completely open to all design considerations.

Process and Inspiration

I draw artistic inspiration from both painting and photography. This includes Hudson River School painters such as Frederic Edwin Church and William Bradford, who explored the desolate coast of Arctic Labrador, Canada. In addition, I am inspired by photographic works capturing changing worlds, such as Carlton Watkins’s West, Atget’s Paris and by photographers who work at night, such as Brassai.

Audience

The target audience are those interested in photography, sustainability, art, the environment, Greenland, the Arctic, native people, new technology usages such as NFTs and adventure. They are educated mostly urban international professionals who might find inspiration from the photographic project.

Promotion

Book promotion will be through exhibitions, talks, presentations, book signings, popup shows, postcards, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), blog posts, articles, and social media posts. Initial outreach revolves around galleries, museums, environmental groups, Danish contacts and university art and environmental departments and an extensive mailing list. I am very comfortable making direct contact with others, giving talks and conducting all other promotional activities. See below for possible venues.

Additionally, a portion of any exhibition print sales and NFTs will be donated to local native groups and environmental organizations. This kind of cross-cultural collaboration is essential to the project and will help the work make a lasting cultural impact.

I identify as someone with disabilities, suffering from painful psoriatic arthritis and tiring fibromyalgia. The physicality of the arctic trips were challenging but rewarding, and feel this can be part of promotional activities.

Institutional Relationships

Institutions I have connections with include a contemporary foundation in Paris; an art gallery in western Canada; and a museum in Denmark. Also, I will reconnect with many other curators, cultural institutions and governmental agencies, including the US and Danish Embassies. I also have several gallery connections in New York, North American, and Europe.

The American-Scandinavian Foundation, VisitGreenland, and other sponsor-supported the arctic trips, and will be ideal opportunities for exhibition, lecture, and book-signings.

My first Greenlandic trip resulted in an article in Vice, having a photograph included in a museum show and participation in an Instagram takeover.

Previous Project Support

• American-Scandinavian Foundation Grant, 2021
• VisitGreenland, sponsorship, 2021
• Vitec Group Plc., sponsorship, 2021
• Apollo SatPhone, sponsorship, 2021
• US Embassy to Greenland Cultural Attache, discussions/recommendations, 2021
• Artists’ Fellowship Award, 2020
• Fulbright Alternate (Canada) for a similar project; 2019 reapplied 2021
• “Greenland at Night,” Yale Club of New York, 2018
• The Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, Atlanta, 2017
• Atlanta Celebrates Photography, Atlanta, 2017
• Landscapes and Interventions, HATHAWAY Contemporary Gallery, Atlanta, 2017
• Instagram takeover, Visit Greenland , 2017
• American-Scandinavian Foundation Grant, 2016
• Lois Roth Endowment grant, 2016
• “Monthly Performance,” Salon, Philadelphia, 2016
• Vice article, 2016

Relation to Long-Term Goals

These photographs are a continuation of my decades-long creative undertaking investigating worldwide climate change. Sharing this work is a pivotal career milestone as well as represents an ambitious expansion toward larger, international multidisciplinary research-based projects. However, I feel it is crucial to publish these photos in 2022/23 before the land and region metamorphose further.

One of my landscape photographs was published in a Chronicle Book.

Possible Maquette of Darkland: Greenland Fine Art Photography Book Proposal

Darkland: Greenland Fine Art Photography Book Proposal @SteveGiovinco from Steve Giovinco

Possible Sequencing of Darkland: Greenland Fine Art Photography Book Proposal

Darkland: Night Landscape Photographs of Greenland [Book Dummy] from Steve Giovinco