GALLERY IV
with Lawrence Lee

“Among my favorite subjects, are images of scenes enveloped in mist. Contrary to the customary revealing nature of photography, these images suggest mystery by, at once, obscuring and disclosing, calling on the viewer to participate by inferring what lies beyond the fog.”

A life-long photographer, Max Stern owes his relationship with the camera to his father; who taught him technique, production, composition, foresight and artistry. These are skills that he has also put to good use as a trial lawyer, which for three decades has been his “real” job. And vice-versa. A photographer friend once remarked to him that the only thing a photographer adds to reality is a unique point of view – what he or she chooses to shoot, how they situate the lens, or crop the image. One’s photographs reflect who one is. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Stern’s favorite images resemble circumstantial evidence in a trial: they depict the artifacts of human circumstance – things made or left behind, to be decoded by later witnesses to the scene. To this each viewer brings his own intelligence and imagination, decoding the mystery of what just happened or will happen, or perhaps leaving suspended and unresolved the still moment captured by the camera. Light, color and shading are the adjectives in these phrases; the action verbs are the objects of human design.

Stern’s images have been shown in solo and juried exhibits in Boston, Martha’s Vineyard and Vermont.

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