Doremus Scudder

About the Artist

Doremus Scudder spent his childhood and early adulthood in Southern Oregon. Raised in an active family with a great affection for the outdoors, he grew up with a deep appreciation of natural beauty and the environment as well as becoming an avid outdoorsman. He learned the basics of photography from his father when still a child, as well as developing an early love of classical music, and has pursued dual careers of photography and music since college.

Doremus began photographing seriously in his early twenties, working originally with small and medium format until he felt the need for higher quality and perspective controls.  At that point he bought his first view camera and set to work mastering the techniques associated with large camera and film.  He has worked entirely with large format ever since.  Although color photography was once a large part of his commercial work, his personal vision has always been manifested through the photographic instrument he deems most expressive: black & white.

In 1988, Doremus and his wife, Marie Landreth, moved to Vienna, Austria to study at the renowned Vienna Academy of Music.  They lived and worked there as singers and music educators for almost 30 years.  They now reside in Eugene.  Alongside his musical activities, Doremus’ passion for photography has developed into a flourishing and rewarding career.

Doremus’ works exclusively in black-and-white, using film and hand-crafting silver-gelatin photographs  in the darkroom from large-format negatives using traditional photographic techniques. Nothing is done using digital technology. 

He controls the entire process from start to finish, painstakingly developing each negative by hand, then individually creating fine prints employing the highest quality materials and masterful printing techniques to realize his vision.

Doremus’ work springs from the American West-Coast tradition of Straight Photography: a presentation of the subject as originally envisioned without further artificial manipulations of the image, conventional or digital.  Within this medium, he uses careful organization of the subject and a broad and expressive palette of tonalities to create images of strong form, character and content.  Utilizing varied subject matter ranging from architecture and landscape to still-life, he distills essences and abstractions in his search for the "intensely beautiful".  For Doremus, the function of art is to enrich and uplift the human spirit through excellence and beauty: it is to this end that he strives.

The resulting photographs possess uncommon emotional and spiritual depth, which transcends the merely representational to reveal universalities that strike resonances within us and present narratives about the human condition.; lyric forms and lines that are instinctively familiar, sensuous, moving and alive.  Stories of humanity’s shared strivings and failures.  The photographs themselves are their own best description, expressing their wordless world powerfully and eloquently. They are able to be appreciated on many levels, being rich in immediate impact as well as yielding ever more profundity and detail over time.

Doremus Scudder's work is exhibited widely and represented in numerous galleries and private collections throughout the United States and Europe.

All photographs are archivally processed, selenium toned and mounted and framed using museum-quality cotton-rag board and chemically inert materials to ensure optimum quality and permanence.

Contact information:
DoremusScudder.com
541.554.1119