Josh Ivey Abitz, photographer
My formative years were spent in front of my father’s camera. I was one of the subjects of his lifelong documentary, “Photograph Everything.” When I was in sixth grade, my father taught me to master the Nikon F. I fell in love with the sound and feel and smell of that camera. I was hooked.
At college in the mid-1990’s I developed a philosophical approach to photography under the study of Professor Gregory Schreck, Wheaton College, Illinois. There I learned that composition speaks as loudly as content. And there I learned how to make magical images called photographs appear in the darkroom.
For 10 years I made black and white fine art photography collections of weddings alongside my artist wife Cynthia. This was not wedding photography, but photography of weddings.
Cynthia and I traveled North America and Europe by commission and always came home to the darkroom where I developed and printed the photographs myself. In those days, around the turn of the century, it took 60 hours of labor to create a finished collection of 20 fine prints for a client. We insisted on museum quality presentation, including handmade linen presentation cases made by Cynthia herself. While most photographers outsourced their work to a lab, we attended to every detail of our art from developing to mat cutting and framing. We reinvented the wheel for every commission, because within that process we always found a way to mingle with Beauty.
Delving deeper into the creation process, in 2002 we opened the Ivey Abitz Gallery of Fine Art on Mackinac Island, MI. It featured Cynthia’s oil paintings and photography, and my silver gelatin prints. Working with Hoekstra Printing of Grand Rapids, MI, we published a book of photographic plates. Mackinac Island: Creations featured images about the comingling of human creation with God’s creation.
It was during this gallery phase of 2002-2005 that I sought to become the Ansel Adams of Northern Michigan. However, my sardonic tendencies often led to the inclusion of trash in the frame, or silly juxtapositions like a junked washing machine next to a beautiful tree. Eventually this channeled into my Gas Mask Series.
The Gas Mask Series featured a female figure donning a military gas mask in the midst of regular tourist activities. Shot with a vintage Rolleiflex, each of these soft Mackinac landscapes revealed an ominous yet innocent figure. The large 24-inch prints shocked gallery visitors out of their touristic stupor, if only for a moment. Sunny, my masked model, was a member of the Michigan National Guard and was also our gallery assistant. One year later, she was called to active duty in the Iraq War in 2003.
In 2005 my wife Cynthia and I launched the bespoke women’s clothing brand Ivey Abitz. I have since been the official photographer.
Ivey Abitz the clothing brand requires 3 to 6 major photo shoots each year. From studio basics to location logistics, it’s a joy and a challenge to push for a fresh look every chance I get.
-Josh Ivey Abitz
