Doug Van Gundy began taking photographs after seeing an exhibition of classic photos by French master photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson at museum in Utah.  But it was a 2003 trip to Alaska that caused him to become serious.  “It’s a cliché, you know, the grandeur of Alaska, but behind every cliché is a truth, and the beauty and wildness of that landscape made me want to become a better photographer.”

There must be something about unfamiliar landscapes that inspires Van Gundy, as many of the photographs in the show were taken while he was traveling.  “There is something liberating about the anonymity of travel,” Van Gundy says.  “I would never dream of taking street photographs of people at home, but when I am in a city, I see the thousands of faces and the way that people are somehow private with each other in the midst of those crowds, and I am compelled to take pictures.”  Van Gundy says that he has always loved the great French street photographers, and tries to contemporize their methods in his work.  “The digital camera is a boon to street photography, you can look without being seen, and the technology makes it so easy to shoot from the hip.”  Some of the photos in this show that reveal this technique are a shot from Dresden, Germany of two young lovers kissing beneath a sculpture of an angel, and a photo taken at a music festival in West Virginia of a heavily tattooed young woman talking.

Some of the artist's work from his show "People and Places"