“If you're photographing in color, you will show the color of their clothes.  If you use black and white, you will show the color of their soul.”  ~ Author Unknown

Looking at the photography of Christopher Robin Blum is like taking a peek into the mind of Rod Serling.  His dark sensibility is ghostly and oddly nostalgic. There’s a palpable, connective narrative in his compositions that’s eerie, as if the artist has captured a picture of silence.

Last year, Blum won a merit award from Black & White Magazine (the nation’s premier black and white fine art periodical), in their Single Image Portfolio competition, for his photograph titled “Sky Boots.”  The magazine published Blum in their October 2008 special edition.

Blum cited Mapplethorpe and Man Ray as influences, but entered the world of fine art photography with no formal training or preconceptions. Like his heroes, Blum has sought to blaze his own path, seeking inspiration where ever he can find it. “I believe that a well-executed image transcends language and culture, and can share the photographer’s perceptions and emotions in a way no other form of art can,” declared Blum.

Blum has shown in group shows at the Truckee River Gallery; the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art; the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art and the California Museum of Photography.  Blum’s Innocence Lost series is disquieting and subversive.  In his artist statement, published in the collector’s companion book for the OCCCA exhibit LA 2 OC: Emphasis Extreme, Blum described the idea behind the series:

The Innocence Lost series explores the period when we are awakened from our idyllic, carefree, innocent beauty of childhood, to discover that the world is a cold, cruel, unfair place. The realization that we are not the center of the universe and our parents cannot protect us from everything. That we must plow forward into the world through inequity and unfairness, to search for a small part of the peaceful sanctuary that once surrounded us.

On his penchant for black and white imagery, Blum noted, “There is a purity to black and white photographs that I find incredibly beautiful and timeless. I won’t say I’ll never shoot color, but right now monochrome imagery allows me to express myself in ways that color can’t.”

View the work of Christopher Robin Blum at www.twotone.net

Oliver X