"The Catalyst Sessions" w/ Bill DeYoung: Jim Swallow

Veteran photographer Jim Swallow was able to combine two of his favorite things, 3-D (stereoscopic) photography and promoting St. Petersburg fine artists, with his new exhibition at Soft Water Studios in the Warehouse Arts District.

It’s called 2020 Vision, and it opens Saturday (which, by the numeric calendar, is 10-10. He planned it that way).

Monday on The Catalyst Sessions, Swallow explained the process he used to photograph 20 artists twice each (there’s that number thing again), using a sophisticated stereoscopic camera.

“I went into the studios,” he said. “I photographed them in their studio space. I didn’t get them looking at me or anything – it was as if I was just there, and nobody was watching. I wanted to record how they did their work, and what their environment was.”

The artists featured in the 3-D imagery are D YaeL Kelley, Charlie Parker, Mark Aeling, Duncan McClellan, Kyu Yamamoto, Teresa Sullivan, George Stovall, Cheryl Anne Day Swallow, Rebecca Skelton, Demeree Barth, Dee Perconti, Kayla Harbeitner, Josh Poll, Benjamin Mallett, David Bradford, Rachel Stewart, Kevin Brady, Brian Ransom and Soft Water’s owner, Carrie Jadus.

They work in a variety of media, from clay to glass to jewels to oil paint – and the end result, Swallow insists, is “all” three dimensional. That’s what he wanted to depict in his finely-detailed photos.

Each artist has three pieces in the exhibit, and nearby, framed and mounted, is Swallow’s stereo photo of each at work. Visitors can view them with the provided stereophonic glasses. This kind of photography began in the mid 19th century, Swallow explained, making it “the original virtual reality.”

Jadus joined the conversation – live from Soft Water – to discuss Saturday’s socially-distanced and masked opening, which coincides with the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance’s first in-person Second Saturday ArtWalk since the pandemic began in the spring.

“It really is a fantastic show,” she said. “We’ve been setting it up all day, and the artwork is phenomenal. There’s such a variety of artists, and I wouldn’t have believed we’d be able to fit so much work in the show, but we got it all in here.”

“We got it all in,” Swallow echoed with a smile.

#StPeteCatalyst #Radio #Tampabay #StPete #Florida