Evidence of Wind

Sally Gall: Dramatic Landscape Photography

By Boca Raton Museum of Art

A portfolio by Sally Gall exhibited at the Boca Raton Museum of Art

Atchafalaya (1990) by Sally GallBoca Raton Museum of Art

New York photographer Sally Gall has spent more than 30 years shooting Pictorialist landscapes. Gall visits public spaces to capture her dreamlike tableaux.

Rio, Botanical Garden #1 (1986) by Sally GallBoca Raton Museum of Art

Gall prefers to travel to either tropical, leafy environments or watery, rocky ones.

Tanah Lot (1992) by Sally GallBoca Raton Museum of Art

This is located in Bali and Gall said that the “exotic location drew her because it was infused with its own sense of the romantic.”

Tampaksiring (1992) by Sally GallBoca Raton Museum of Art

Gall likes to go to places that evoke certain emotions and big ideas. This lush landscape in Bali has associations for her with the ideas of life and fertility.

Canoe (1990) by Sally GallBoca Raton Museum of Art

This was shot while Gall was at Macdowell, an artists’ colony in southern New Hampshire. Gall shot a full series of photos at the edge of a pond.

Monadnock (1990) by Sally GallBoca Raton Museum of Art

Still at Macdowell, Gall said that she hadn’t been planning on shooting while at the artists’ colony but had been “fascinated by the benign quality of the fields, meadows, and ponds.”

Pond (1990) by Sally GallBoca Raton Museum of Art

Gall shoots with a traditional film camera. To create an otherworldly feeling, she diffuses the details of the images in the darkroom.

Galveston (1990) by Sally GallBoca Raton Museum of Art

Gall has said that she “uses black-and-white because that is already abstract” and that aids her in her aim to “lift her viewers out of the everyday.”

Vernal Falls (1993) by Sally GallBoca Raton Museum of Art

Ultimately, Gall would like to depict the sublime. For artworks, the sublime is defined as “of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.”

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The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.

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