WRIGHT OFFICE

Eugene Gray first turned his attention to the camera in a serious way when he was in his forties and found a mentor in Mexico who showed him the possibilities of photos as art. He preferred black-and-white film and concentrated mostly on landscape, especially two favored spots, the Salton Sea in southern California and Death Valley. “But the darkroom was really his magic place,” writes his widow, Sara Jean Gray. “Making the chemicals, winding the film on the rolls, watching the images appear. In his later 80s he began to have trouble with his hands and couldn’t get the film on the darkroom rolls anymore. We got him some digital equipment and he took a few gorgeous pictures, but it wasn’t for him. So from then on he just curated photographs he had created and we remembered the magic.”  Gene died in June of this year, at the age of 97. His silver gelatin prints, which Sara Jean is offering for free to interested viewers, will hang in the office through September.