A respected artist visited San Quentin State Prison to take large-scale color photographs of the North Block Dining Hall where Johnny Cash performed in 1958 and recorded an album in 1969.
“It means a lot to stand where Johnny Cash played as I reach the end of this nine-year project,” Rhona Bitner said.
Bitner’s project, Listen, which images American popular music, led her to travel across the United States photographing iconic and historic locations from juke joints to studios to prisons.
“Listen is about our collective experience Rock n’ Roll,” Bitner said.
The series of photographs includes Electric Lady Studios in New York, Jimi Hendrix’s recording studio, Austin City Limits studio stage in Texas, and Elvis Presley’s music room at Graceland.
Bitner’s career began at New York University’s art program, where a professor encouraged her photography. It was then that she discovered she belonged in a darkroom.
“Making photographs is like breathing,” she says. “I’ve had a camera in my hands since I was 6 years old.”
Bitner’s photographs have been displayed around the world. She’s had individual exhibitions at Yezerski Gallery in Boston in 2012 and Blondeau Fine Art, Geneva, Switzerland, in 2011.
Her work also has appeared in group exhibitions, including une breve histoire de l’avenir in the Mussee du Louvre, Paris, 2015; Mythomia, curated by Stephane Malfettes, Rouen, France, 2014, and Pictures are Words Not Known, Photography Museum, Lishu, China, 2011.
“It isn’t about me. I want the work to speak to the viewer,” Bitner said, describing her work. “I shoot film, so at the moment when I am making a photo of you, the light bouncing off your face is the same light exposing the film in the camera. There is a physical connection. There is an inherent beauty in that.”
San Quentin News photographer Eddie Herena asked Bitner what makes a good picture.
“So many factors can contribute to a good image. There are the technical aspects like focus, light, exposure, and making sure there’s not a pole or a tree right behind your subject’s head,” Bitner said. “The photographer needs to adapt to what is in front of him, always. Then there’s the question of what is situated where in the frame, primary and secondary… and not to forget what’s around the edges. But just as relevant, I think that the photographer must believe or trust what he sees, so that the audience will as well.”
Herena said, especially for a newspaper, he needed to avoid situations when the sun is on the person’s back. “It creates shadows, which darkens the person’s face and you don’t get a clear image,” he said. “I now know that sometimes I have to change my position in order to get a picture that can be used in the newspaper.”
Bitner said what she hopes to achieve with her photographs is for people to remember the places and people of her work.
“It’s an attempt to contain that memory and hold onto it for ourselves.” She added, however, “Books are very important to me, they would be my legacy. I hope to publish my photographs so they can live beyond me.”
Bitner’s work can be viewed at: www.rhonabitner.com
–Rahsaan Thomas contributed to this story
