Frank Villafãne – ChatterArtist January 2014
Frank Villafãne – ChatterArtist January 2014
Our ChatterArtist for this month is a new client I started working with last year, architectural photographer Frank Villafa?ne. I received an email from Frank recently informing me that some of his images would be appearing in a show in New Brunswick, NJ and the timing was kind of well, perfect. Why? The sign for this month of January is the Earth sign of Capricorn, and although Frank is not a Capricorn himself, he is one of the other two Earth signs, a Taurus. Frank photographs Architecture and man-made industrial structures – and it is our Capricorn who builds these very structures!
In particular, think about very large structures, monuments and bridges – buildings that are large enough to be named after someone, that kind of thing… and that is something that Frank happens to love to photograph. When he first described to me what he does, he said, “I shoot cityscapes, bridges and industrial imaging” – which he certainly does, but what I also particularly liked was that he was often focusing on one place, a particular theme or a specific series of similar structures.
And yes, Frank definitely has a thing about bridges, so I wanted to make sure we showed you some of those! Not all of the bridges are necessarily working bridges – in fact, I find some of the derelict ones the most interesting and beautiful.
From the gallery website: “The Alfa Art Gallery is proud to present its fourth annual Photography exhibition, “New Brunswick in The Eyes of Photographers”, in cooperation with New Brunswick City Market. This Photography Exhibition is a part of the New Brunswick Art Salonseries, in which Alfa invites established and emerging artists to present their works as a tangible presentation of their artistic expression. This winter, we invited photographers to open the audience towards their images of New Brunswick, a cultural and diverse city with various perspectives and viewpoints.” Frank has been shooting for the city of New Brunswick, NJ for a while now, and recently posted one of his signature images (see below) to their website.
Frank shoots a lot, which is great, so he always has something new to show you. The challenge with him and many of my clients, is not to overpopulate the website galleries, otherwise there is simply too much for the viewer to look at. So my advice is to constantly put the best work up there, keep editing down the portfolios, so you will always have plenty of additional archived images in case you need them. Frank also chose to have a slide show on the home page of his Urban Industrial Imaging website that showcases a selection of his best images, plus he has a blog.
Now as a Taurus, Frank is naturally going to enjoy the finer things in life – good food, art and music – so it came as no big surprise to learn that when he’s not photographing architecture, he is also a performing musician and can be found playing in his Latin Jazz Quartet, Frank & 3 To Clave, which performs every weekend at CubaCan, a very tasty-sounding Cuban restaurant in Asbury Park, NJ – wish it was nearer the city!