Photographs expose 'dynamic eye'
Campus Times
September 25, 1998
Torrance Daily Breeze and 16-year photojournalist Thomas Alleman,
who currently has a photo exhibit in the Irene Carlson Gallery at the University
of La Verne, will present a photo slide lecture in Founders Hall Auditorium
on Oct. 1 from 7:30-8:30 p.m.
"I expect to cover specific photographers and bodies of work that
they have published or shown that have influenced me in this work [field]
specifically," said Alleman.
Some of the photographers' work which Alleman will discuss are Lee Freidlander,
Gary Winogrand and Alex Webb.
In addition to the various photographers, Alleman plans to analyze his
own works.
"I am going to show my old work or my oldest work, stuff that I
was doing when I first began," said Alleman. "I want to talk about
what it was like to be beginning, to be a student, and to be searching for
one's voice."
On display in the Irene Carlson Gallery, located in Miller Hall, is
a compilation of Alleman's 35 black and white pictures entitled "Los
Angeles: Photographs 1989-1998."
"Doing street photography is really difficult because no one knows
what you are doing and everyone wonders why the hell you are doing that
[shooting] with the camera," said Alleman.
Alleman's photo exhibit details everyday life in Los Angeles through
the "dynamic eye" of the camera.
"There are realities which are purely photographic and a part of
what I am doing is just making pictures which explore what the world looks
like when photographed," said Alleman.
The style of Alleman's work is heavily influenced by Swiss photographer
Robert Frank and French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who are like
photography role models.
In respect to his photographic role models, Alleman brings out the drama
of everyday life in scenes that, to the human eye, may seem dull.
"It's true that you can leech energy out of the picture and make
something that seems phenetic and dynamic and frantic in life seem rather
hollow," said Alleman.
Alleman, who was born and raised in Detroit, graduated from Michigan
State University in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in English Literature.
After graduating, Alleman worked as an editor for an alternative newspaper,
but found that it was not personally rewarding. Therefore he went back to
school in 1982 to study photography.
Alleman had found his passion and would later move to San Francisco,
to pursue a freelance career in early 1986.
"If we could explain what we [photographers] are trying to do with
words than we would just use words, why bother having it be photographed,"
said Alleman.
A few of the weekly alternative newspapers in San Francisco that he
had worked for included the East Bay Express, the Bay Guardian,
and the Sentinel.
Alleman managed to attain a great deal of recognition when he joined
the Torrance Daily Breeze in 1995.
Those awards included "Newspaper Photographer of the Year"
(1995) from both the Los Angeles and California Press Photographers Association,
and second runner-up for the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA's)
"Photographer of the Year" award in 1996.
Other awards included the NPPA's "Pictures of the Year" for
his coverage of the National Political Convention in 1997, and, in the spring
of that year Alleman won the Associated Press' "Mark Twain Award"
for Overall Excellence in a photo-essay about a "small-town" high
school football team.
In the next two years, Alleman hopes that he will have completed a book
of photographs that document life in Los Angeles, which he has been working
on since 1993.
