“A straight photograph is an exact representation of asegment of space and time circumscribed by the physicaland optical limitations of the medium. So, although therepresentation is exact, because of the circumscription, it isalso a visual fiction. Daniel Gordon explores this boundarywith inventiveness, playfulness, and physical stamina.”

—Stephen Shore

“The artist’s short, gravity-killed glides are real, though hisfantastical pictures suggest that computer-based trickerymight have been used.”

— The Dallas Morning New s

“On a fundamental level, the art of photography is about themiracle, and how to make the ordinary extraordinary. Thesepictures do that in it’s purest form. They capture suspendedmoments, perfectly situated between transcendence and doom.”

—Gregory Crewdson

Between 2001 and 2004, on the snowy fields in New York’sHudson Valley and the rocky coasts of the Bay Area inNorthern California, photographer Daniel Gordon learned tofly—if only for 1/125 of a second. Using a camera mountedon a tripod, Gordon frames his picture. He then runs out ontothe landscape and launches himself into the air, while anassistant snaps the shutter. The images in Flying Pictures areat once pastoral landscapes and documents of a performance.Only after considering them for a while, does the thought occurthat their fleeting bliss was swiftly met with physical doom—acrash back to Earth. Such a journey requires great humility aswell as hubris, and a will to achieve the impossible if only fora moment. The project began at a time when digital technologywas changing the role that truth has historically played inthe media of film and photography. The ease with which onecould now alter an image with Photoshop created a new senseof paranoia concerning the veracity of photographs. FlyingPictures ’ unbelievable, unaltered images reveal that therenever was just one truth in photography.