The View From Here
January 5 – 28, 1989
When I was ten years old my Uncle Ralph gave me a plastic camera for my birthday. It was low tech, poor quality and an object of instant affection. I used it to take pictures of my family, our dog, the neighborhood, vacations and anything of even vague interest to me. Then, when I was 16, I loaned my brother $100 for which he gave me his Nikon F2 as collateral. He never repaid the cash and I ended up with the better end of that bargain, using the camera to shoot for my high school yearbook, for freshman college projects and as the springboard to studying photography seriously.
But it was at a Goodwill in Fairfax, California in 1976 that I found the way in which my eye would see the world most wonderfully. For 40 cents I purchased a “Lina I” toy camera whose plastic lens and light-leaking proclivities would produce some of the loveliest and quirkiest slices of whatever may have been in front of me. It weighed nothing, it defied the avarice of thieves, and required a couple feet of electrician’s tape to stem the myriad ways its construction permitted light to enter its secret chamber. But oh, those foggy highlights, the instant vignette-ing and the symmetry of its square. It made me want to look at everything as if I were seeing it for the very first time. Suddenly wherever I might be became a place with a view that called out to be honored.
Now, nearly forty years later, I hope that the photos that follow are evidence of why “here,” no matter where that might be, is always worth a view.
(For Mable and Mack who provided such beautiful views, both forward and back.)
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Julie Mihaly attended Vassar College before earning a BFA & MFA in photography from The San Francisco Art Institute. After teaching photography for more than a decade at schools such as NYC’s School of Visual Arts & Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University, Mihaly contributed her talents as a photo director, editor & researcher to magazines such as “Vanity Fair,”“Entertainment Weekly” & “Garden Design.” She also wrote for “Martha Stewart Living,” “Budget Living” & “Organic Style” before returning to the full-time pursuit of her own photography. Mihaly has exhibited her work in the U.S., Canada & Europe, winning inclusion in a number of juried exhibitions. She is one of four 2018 recipients of a Working Artists Organization grant, & won first prize in the SoHo Photo Gallery 2019 National Open Competition. Eight books of Mihaly’s work have been published. She currently lives & works in the Hudson River Valley.
www.juliemihaly.com/Photo.html
