Vibrance & Intensity Meet On Main Street

A reclusive photographer is persuaded to participate in a nationally acclaimed art show with dramatic images that inspire a range from awe to ire.

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Ray Crosby

Jul 23, 2015, 09:36 ET

PARK CITY, Utah, July 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Ray Crosby knows he piques the purists. "This is all about crystallizing a moment, emulating the experience of vision and connecting with the primal, with joy or awe. If you see it and it stirs you, who cares about purists?"

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150723/241051

Award-winning. Publicity-shy. Controversial. Curmudgeonly. Landscape photographer Ray Crosby is doing something unexpected: debuting in a nationally acclaimed art show. As Park City prepares for the 46th Kimball Arts Festival, July 31, Crosby's Sunmill Studios is preparing a display of dramatic and unusual landscapes. Crosby says: "Thank God for Honey Parker and Slow Burn Marketing. I'm way out of my comfort zone. She dragged me into this."

Honey Parker: "Nobody agrees which image they like best. But all agree that when you look, you just can't look away." To her point: flame-orange morning bathes icy aspens; gray mist enshrouds a pine-covered ridgeline; sunrise bursts through a rich green tree line. All stunning. All defy consensus.

In 2007, Crosby moved from the coast to a remote Utah mountaintop. A lifelong photographer, the vistas became captivating. Dusk on snow covered terrain. Dawn in an aspen grove. The irony? Crosby long considered sunrise/sunset as overrated subjects. In the Wasatch Back, it's different. Beyond mere subjects, the landscape and the sun became characters.

Also ironic, Crosby once was a purist himself. He finally switched to digital (something he swore he'd never do). He began combining up to eight different exposures of a scene and printing onto large, vibrant metal panels. "A conventional photograph can't capture a scene as your mind does. The eye and brain process so much instantly. This is about crystallizing that moment and striving for vibrancy. Some purists reject this. So it goes. Eventually, you have to see art not as about the tools used in making it, but about the viewer's gut feeling. And it's hard to see these extraordinary places and not feel awe."

Sunmill Studios displays in Kimball Arts Festival Booth 111, July 31 to August 2, 2015. Queries to Honey Parker. At this time, it is unclear whether Ray Crosby will speak to the press.