Barbara Tyroler

Barbara Tyroler

Photography – Chapel Hill

This is one in a series of posts about artists in the Orange County Artists Guild.

What is your medium? Why do you love it?

My medium is photography. Photography keeps me involved in seeing, observing, reinterpreting the world as I move through it, watching the light, the people’s faces as we interact in casual conversations. Lately I have been photographing nature where there are not people, only light and shadow as it moves on the landscape of trees and water. I am also an educator and helping people express their vision through this medium gives me much pleasure. We’re translators, working between the world as it is and the world as it might be understood. We’re trained to see potential in the everyday, to find the extraordinary hiding in plain sight.

Do you work in a sketchbook or journal? How does it influence your process?

I do a lot of journaling, making imagery through a lens every day, printing it out and pasting it into a bound book with blank pages. There I write freehand about my thoughts and responses to visualization through the lens and how it becomes a metaphor for what’s happening inside.

Describe your process or technique

I watch the sky for light. I clean my lens and pack my gear. I walk or drive to a location where the sun is low, or if there is no sun, where the trees speak to me. I shoot, sometimes only a handful of images, sometimes many if there is excitement and stimulation. I return to the computer where I insert my memory card, upload to edit in software, download and save to two external drives. Then I upload one photo to social media, after having exported as a lower resolution file. Sometimes I write about it. Sometimes I email to friends or family. Sometimes I print a draft for future projects.

I work with many cameras from traditional dSLR to the LensBaby and lately an adapted infrared sensor that creates mostly black and white imagery that appears to glow! Other than that I use computers, scanners, and printers to make my images onto various paper substrates and fabric.

Did you have a “gateway craft” that you did as a child? How did it lead you into your current art?

As a child I used to draw with my mother. She taught me to see trees in winter, create feathery strokes for peacock tails, watch the sky change colors. I am an introvert. I like being invisible while photographing, especially if I am in a crowd. I like looking through the viewfinder, rather than on a screen, so I can be focused in a private place while I am making photographs. I grew up in Chapel Hill. I was a photographer in high school for my paper. I was editor of the creative arts section. I photographed my friends and family mostly. I took art lessons but was not particularly encouraged to pursue painting. I had friends in college and we had a darkroom. I was hooked. I have a MFA in Imaging and Digital Arts.

Pick one of your pieces and tell us how it came into being.

One photograph I love is entitled Night Neighbors (below). I photographed it during Covid while in my safe cluster of friends outside on their patio looking up at the night sky and trees. It reminds me of the importance of relationships, especially during times of great anxiety and insecurity. Photographs tell stories because we were there – in the world, interacting in real time.

Tell us about your work space or studio.

My studio is my office with three printers, a desktop computer, and lots of files and cabinets. All around me are photos of my friends and family from my lifetime. Many of them are gone, so it is wonderful to be surrounded by photos that I made during our time together.

Pick one item (equipment or material) in your work space that you use a lot, and tell us about it in detail.

My computer. It has a large monitor. I have an expensive chair that I bought because of back problems. I never use it correctly, it is too complicated. I keep my desktop a neutral grey and have only one or 2 folders on the surface of the screen. The rest are organized in clusters and subfolders. To my left is my Photoshop text and wires and connectors. My office desk is usually clean. It faces a window looking out on our neighbors’ yard where they often sit and sip afternoon beers. Behind me are boxes of photos and on the walls are the photos of my friends and family. I have two closets where I store filing cabinets and other peripherals such as old back up drives and lots of cords. In the closets are also boxes from my mother after she died. They contain miscellaneous details of her life and some odd photos that I have yet to organize.

Do you teach classes? Where?

I’ve taught most of my adult life. When I graduated with my first masters in Education, I taught Special Ed using photography, videography, and creative dramatics to children who were hospitalized for emotional and psychological problems. After earning my MFA, I taught college level students at the University of Maryland Art Department for most of my career, and UNC Journalism Department, and Duke Center for Documentary Studies on short-term contracts. I now teach independently and at the Carrboro ArtsCenter and OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) at Duke.

What could people expect to see at your studio during the OCAG Studio Tour?

In the past I have hosted musicians on the porch. I may do that this year, haven’t decided. I have framed about 20 pieces of new work that will be displayed on the walls sized from about 11×14 to 50″ framed. I have matted photos in a bin, and a set of unmounted photos that I am selling with 100% proceeds going to Planned Parenthood. These are thematic, trees and water. They are composited imagery with 2-10 layers.

What’s next for your work?

My next project is a grant-funded exhibition that includes infrared landscape photos of neighborhoods in Chapel Hill and Carrboro where my friends and I grew up during the first wave of school integration. I will be interviewing my African American childhood friends as well as my white friends, about their experiences during this time. I will take them back to their old neighborhoods and churches and playgrounds and photograph the landscape there. I may make portraits of them as well. The interviews will be on the walls with the photographs. I will have a community forum to discuss some of the issues and experiences.