Thea Schrack

Thea Schrack is a photographer with a penchant for the past. Her photographic forays have taken her to English country estates and Czech castles in search of places with a sense of beauty and mystery. Schrack's fascination with architecture and landscapes produces photographic work, which predominantly figures structures and gardens steeped in antiquity. Schrack's photographs are decidedly complex images involving countless shapes and textures. There is a Gothic sensibility which permeates her work, in the solitude of the Czech castle ruins, elongated shadows, moss laden trees, arrested fountains and open gates Schrack uses the photographic medium to transform, or possibly even romanticize, small vignettes of our world. She aspires to capture the essence of the subject through the balance of the absolute and a dream of bringing it into a new existence. Schrack is constantly captivated by the role of light within her work. She experiments with photographing the same image at different times of day. "The picture at noon will be different from the picture at 8:00 AM" , she states. Schrack also favors visiting the site several times to perceive the subtle diurnal and more evident seasonal changes and to develop an increased sense of the beauty of nature within the area. Finding 35mm cameras severely confining in size, Schrack shoots mostly with a modern Japanese Widelux panorama camera and cites Josef Sudek, the late Czech photographer, as an inspiration particularly for his work with the panorama camera. She favors the wider format, supplemented by infrared film, for its superior ability to encompass and complement the complexity of her work.

Thea Schrack Images:
Antique Tulips I
Antique Tulips II
Antique Tulips III
Beechnuts Branches
Dawn at Heceta Lighthouse
Forest Vignette
Garden of Count Agoston Haraszthy
Gateway, Hitcote Manor Garden, England
Gathering Leaves
Jade Lake, Chateau Montelana
Jeanne d’Arc Roses
Magnolia Branches
Running Horses
Sulky Race
Topiary Doorway, Hitcote Manor Garden, England
Tybee Lighthouse I
Tybee Lighthouse II
Yaquina Head Lighthouse