“The Decisive Pixel”

As a play on the title to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s book “The Decisive Moment,” the title to David

Kaminsky’s exhibition, “The Decisive Pixel” transforms the “moment” into the “pixel” and brings

us directly into contact with the digital age.

Cartier-Bresson said “In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject.” Kaminsky

seems to have taken this statement quite literally by taking the smallest element of a digital

photograph, the pixel, and making it the subject of his large scale compositions.  According to

Kaminsky, “these prints expand one carefully chosen pixel along one axis of a high resolution

image to express its visual essence in an immediately recognizable form.”

The exhibit includes landscapes, still lifes, and portraits, one of which is a self portrait of the

artist. In the self portrait, the rose colored skin areas are in striking contrast to the silver of the

artist’s hair and beard.  The cool blue of the artist’s eyes twinkle out from the lines of shadow

that surround the eye socket.  In yet another image, titled “Ossabaw #1,” one is immediately

affected by the brilliant blue sky and the warm sandy/marsh area of the image, all of which

evoke the islands wind-swept beauty. All of the images in this show exist somewhere between

painting and photography. Clearly photography based, they move into the direction of

minimalism, with their bare-boned essentials of geometric abstraction. To compare to painting,

one need only to look at a Kenneth Noland canvas from his 1970’s series “Horizontal Stripes.”

“The Decisive Pixel” may be a new series for Kaminsky but he is a veteran photographer with

over thirty years of professional experience. You can bet that this series will grow as David

continues to pin point exciting compositions through the lens of his digital camera. This is

photography at its best, striped down to its most fundamental element, the pixel.

Jan Clayton Pagratis

Director/Co-Owner

Chroma Gallery