John Griebsch

My aerial photographs present a sense of selective design applied to an extremely small and specific area of the vast landscape over which I fly. I find the need to make geographical sense of the earth, as well as the need to make visual sense of a photograph.

I work with ambiguity of scale, the graphic quality of nature and with the hand of man upon the landscape. My images have an abstract and often painterly quality. They are at once factual and interpretive.

Familiar landscapes take on a fresh context when airborne. The images require the confluence of several factors. There is the subject – a minuscule segment of the landscape that has captured my interest due to its sense of pattern, order or disarray. There is the essential contribution of light. There is the position and altitude of the airplane, and there is a need to capture the stillness and composition of the moment while moving over the subject at more than seventy miles per hour.

My earliest aerial photographs were of ice and farmland, made close to home. The scope of the work opened up on solo flights across the continent in my vintage 1952 Cessna 170B. Those flights are made to find images of landscapes on a grander scale as well as unfamiliar opportunities to find images that take in a small detail.

In my most recent work I’ve discovered what might be regarded as historical or documentary themes – some of the images of factories and quarries present relics of the country’s industrial past, while my newer images of the landscape and agriculture denote changes in the scale of farming and open space.

My images are typically presented as framed 30” x40” or larger prints. The existing body of work, titled Aerias is comprised of more than two hundred images. Collections of my images have been placed in corporate and business settings and in private collections.

I started photographing when I was twelve years old. My father taught me to fly when I was fourteen years old. Before taking off on my first solo flight, he admonished me not to go out of sight of the airport. I was soon out of his view and yet from where I was, the airport was always in sight. Such are the perceptions of a photographer who is airborne.

Resume

Griebsch’s images of American and European aerial landscapes depict the pattern, color and design of natural and manmade landforms. Most of the American aerials have been made from John’s vintage 1952 Cessna 170B aircraft.

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Resume John Griebsch is an aerial photographer and pilot whose aerial landscapes depict natural and man-made landforms. His images of the American landscape have been made from his vintage Cessna 170, in which he has logged more than 100,000 miles. At present there are 300 images in his series of work, titled, AERIAS. Representation Iris Gallery, Boston & Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Aspen, Colorado Carrie Haddad Photographs, Hudson, New York The Art Registry, Washington, DC Chicago Art Source, Chicago, Illinois June Bateman Fine Art, New York, New York Estro Photographics, New York, New York Susan Spiritus Gallery, Newport Beach, California Museum Shows & Juried Shows 64th Rochester Finger Lakes Exhibition, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York - 2013 Earth Through a Lens, (Award Winner), Palm Springs California- 2011 62nd Rochester Finger Lakes Exhibition, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York - 2009 59th Rochester Finger Lakes Exhibition, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York - 2003 International Photography Invitational, Fraser Gallery, Washington, DC. 2009

Solo and Two-person Gallery Shows

Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York. Summer 2013

Iris Gallery, Boston. 2011- 2012

The Gallery at Bausch and Lomb World Headquarters, Rochester, New York. 2006

Lake Placid Center for the Arts, Lake Placid, New York. 2003

The Elizabeth Collection, Rochester, New York. 1995

The Little Theater Gallery, Rochester, New York. 1991

Group Gallery Shows

Outside Focus, The Drawing Room Gallery, Cos Cob, Connecticut 2014

Summer Show, Iris Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts. 2010

Snow White, Carrie Haddad Photographs, Hudson, New York. 2010 / 2011

Such Great Heights, Carrie Haddad Photographs, Hudson, New York. 2009

Sounding Out, Chicago Art Source, Chicago, Illinois. 2009

Art Registry, Chase Contemporary, Washington, DC. 2009

High Falls Art Gallery, Rochester, New York. 2000

The Link Gallery, Rochester, New York. 1999

Atrium Gallery, Rochester, New York. 1999

Corporate Collections

Bausch and Lomb, New York

Boylan Brown Code Vigdor & Wilson LLP, New York

Coldwell Banker Corporate Offices, New York

Darby & Darby PC, Washington state

Digene Corporation, Maryland

Energy Networks, New York

Gianniny Associates, New York

Linklaters US, New York

Kapstone Paper, Illinois

Konar Properties, New York

McArdle Ramerman, New York

Paychex, New York

Parkside Financial, Missouri

DLA Piper Rudnick Cary Gray, LLP, New Jersey

Reyes Holdings, Illinois

Sherman Hospital, Illinois

Strong Health, New York

Press Coverage /editorial

Adirondack Life Magazine, featured work, December 2015

Adirondack Life Magazine, feature and cover, December / January 2014

Rochester Magazine, featured work, 2014

Lenswork Extended, Featured Interview and Folio, December 2013

City Newspaper, August, 2013

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, feature article. 2012

SxSE online and print magazine, featured portfolio. 2011 & 2012

Rochester Magazine, feature article. 2009

Lake Effect Magazine, featured work. 2007

Adirondack Life Magazine, feature story and cover. 2004

Mountain Lakes Public Broadcasting, Art Express television show, feature segment. 2004

Adjunct Faculty

Aerial Photographic Interpretation. Paul Smiths College. 2005

Introductory Photography, Rochester Institute of Technology. 2007