View the complete Monalog show online or in person at Gallery 270 through February 29, 2024
David Haas Bio
I was born in 1953 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, but grew up in rural southwestern Lehigh County. I discovered photography while attending summer camp in the 1960’s. A camera for Christmas and a darkroom in the basement of our farmhouse soon followed. I was hooked.
After four years in the US Air Force, I made my way to Boston and received a BFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1980. Upon graduation I began to hone my skills as a fine art black and white printer for other photographers and moved back to the Lehigh Valley in 1986 to open my own studio. In 1995 I received an MFA in Photography from the University of Delaware and began teaching at Muhlenberg College as a Part Time Lecture the next year. Since then, I have also taught classes at Lafayette College, Lehigh University, and Kutztown University.
In 1996 I received the first of many contracts from the National Park Service to provide large format black and white documentary photographs of our national parks and other historic sites. Contracts from private cultural resource management firms soon followed. All work can be found in the HABS-HAER collection of the Library of Congress.
My personal work, which spans fifty years, can be found in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, George Eastman Museum, Asheville Art Museum, Allentown Art Museum, Lehigh University, Rhode Island School of Design, Mack Trucks, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, and Capital One Bank. Many individuals enjoy them in their private collections as well.
Artist Statement
Steeped in the history and traditions of black and white photography I was educated in the virtues of using the process “straight”. I work with my cameras to record the world I move through, searching for significant moments in my time, and creating a physical trace of each experience on a sheet of film that is reproduced as a silver print. I am a documentarian. My work is autobiographic. It has evolved as I have aged and reflects a certain continuity of light and space over time and place.