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Thea Schrack is a photographer
with a
penchant for the past. Her photographic forays
have taken her to English country estates and
Czech castles in search of places with a sense of
beauty and mystery. Ms. Schrack's fascination
with architecture and landscapes produces
photographic work, which predominantly figures
structures and gardens steeped in antiquity.
Ms. Schrack's photographs are decidedly
complex images involving countless shapes
and textures. There is a Gothic sensibility which
permeates her work, in the solitude of the Czech
castle ruins, elongated shadows, moss laden
trees, arrested fountains and open gates Ms.
Schrack uses the photographic medium to
transform, or possibly even romanticize, small
vignettes of our world. She aspires to capture
the essence of the subject through the balance
of the absolute and a dream of bringing it into
a new existence.
Ms. Schrack is constantly captivated by the role
of light within her work. She experiments with
photographing the same image at different
times of day. The picture at noon will be different
from the picture at 8:00 AM, she states. Ms.
Schrack also favors visiting the site several times
to perceive the subtle diurnal and more evident
seasonal changes and to develop an increased
sense of the beauty of nature within the area.
The pervasive ethereal, somnambulistic effect
throughout her work is derived from an
amalgamation of her subject choice, film and
developing techniques. Her use of infrared film
overexposes the lights and intensifies the darks,
producing work which embodies her desire for
a sense of mystery. Ms. Schrack works with a
sepia-toned printing process which involves
bleaching and toning, further accentuating the
lights and darks within the photograph. The
ghostly paleness created by the infrared film
relates the atmosphere of a reverie.
Finding 35mm cameras severely confining in
size, Ms. Schrack shoots mostly with a modern
Japanese Widelux panorama camera and cites
Josef Sudek, the late Czech photographer, as
an inspiration particularly for his work with the
panorama camera. She favors the wider format,
supplemented by infrared film, for its superior
ability to encompass and complement the
complexity of her work.
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