Mike Ostrander
Mike received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Old Dominion University in 1987, an experience that deepened his love of photography. Later, pastels became a passion and he began to study sunrises on the James River. While experimenting with other media, photography has been the medium that never left his attention and his most important images feature black and white photos of clouds, rivers, and the astonishing statuary of Hollywood Cemetery.
Today, after more than 25 years as a charter captain on the James River, his photographic images feature a deeper appreciation of rivers. Mike says, “Rivers are timeless and haunting, especially before sunrise. The atmosphere is magical, evoking thoughts of time, distance, and memory. You become one with what you see, hear and feel as your deepest thoughts awaken.”
Where the river and dawn meet is a magical intersection for Mike. His accumulated experience on the water and continued experimentation with the camera have lead to his ethereal images being formed inside the camera itself, using a technique called Intentional Camera Movement.
In his most recent body of work, 10,000 Days on the River, the images are taking him and the viewer on a journey. By boat and by foot. Yesterday. Today. Hundreds of years ago. Indians, painters, trappers, sailors and fisherman all pass in timeless, silent parade within the frames of his photos.
Mike has always been inspired by painters Albert Bierstadt and Asher Durand and their skill of capturing light and time of day. More recently, he has been captivated by the paintings of Aert van Der Neer, of the Golden Age of Dutch landscape painting in the 1600s, and van Der Neer’s atmospheric rivers filled with moonlight, fog, fire, trees, wind and clouds.
Aware his images have been recently created, the timeless quality of them takes Mike seamlessly into the river’s past and its ageless beauty. He maintains, “The history and opportunity for discovery is always there. But never more so than at the early hour where the day arises and throws off its blanket of night.”
