User:CelticAdobo

= John Chervinsky =

Bio
John Chervinsky was a American engineer and self taught photographer. He was born in 1961 in Niagara Falls, New York, and passed away in 2015 at the age of 54 due to pancreatic cancer (4). After his passing, the John Chervinsky Emerging Photography Scholarship was formed with the intent of providing a watershed moment in the professional lives of emerging photographers, providing them with the support and encouragement necessary to develop, articulate and grow their own vision for photography (2). His photographs have been featured internationally in publications including LeMond, South Korea’s Photo+ and The Los Angeles Times.

Chervinsky’s main occupation was an engineer in applied physics. For 18 years Chervinsky ran a particle accelerator at Harvard University and would then work at the Harvard’s Rowland Institute for Science.

Up until 2001, Chervinsky focused on street photography but changed the focus of his subject matter when three major tragedies occurred. In the span of a year his wife, Kirsten Chervinsky, became seriously ill, the World Trade Centers were attacked, and his friend and fellow photographer Guy Pollard passed away unexpectedly. With the combinations of these three events, Chervinsky focused on studio photography that combined his love for the arts and physics.

In 2005, Chervinsky would have his first exhibit at the Griffin Museum. In the following month, Cherinsky got in contact with Mary Virginia Swanson. She then directed Chervinsky to get in contact with the George Eastman House, which was putting on a Traveling exhibit.

Photography
Cherivinsky’s work has been described as an attempt to find metaphors within the laws of nature that can be universally applied to everyday life. Conceptually, the work deals with the divide between rational or scientific explanations of existence and man’s need to explain the world around him with various systems of belief. His studio work began when contemplated if someone could draw a circle in a square corner of a room and still have it look look round in a photograph. The concept soon branched out into combining the use of physics formulas, chalk, the use of perspective and the use of physical objects to create a still life to convey the laws of nature. Cherivinsky would also add in actual scientific facts of concepts into his works, like a Tic-Tac-Toe game what would end with no winner and a picture that made reference to the water on mars. All of these photos would be in black and white along with being printed on matte paper to give it a chalkboard look

Cherivinsky’s color photography predominantly focused on the passage of time or motions  and would be collaborative in nature. Cherivisnky would take a picture of a still life and would then send it to China for it to be painted. Once the painting was received, Cherivisnky would position the painting close to the original still life, which he didn’t and would cause organic matter to whiter and non-organic matter to show signs of dust. The painting would serve as a way to compare an object with how it originally looked.