Walter Rabetz

Walter Rabetz is an artist who uses the photographic medium to explore a variety of conceptual issues. He studied photography at The Rhode Island School of Design and his work is in The George Eastman House Collection in Rochester, NY among other institutions and private collections. He served as the head of the Art Department of The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, CT, retiring to the Hudson River Valley to pursue his photographic work full time. Rabetz works on a particular theme over time until the work culminates in an exhibition of his prints and in a book representing the best of the work in that series. In his forward for Rabetz's book, "The Bear Mountain Bridge, The Jewel of the Hudson, fellow photographer, Siegfried Halus of Santa Fe, wrote: "Some of the most stirring images in this series were made during twilight visitations. These nocturnal creations were enhanced by the use of subtle color zones and points of light that glowed and illuminated the darkened territory, where land, water and bridge meet. Rabetz's heightened sensitivity to waning light, allowed him to create a very special set of spectral images, worthy of Turner's most impressionistic interpretations of naval encounters and marine-scapes. There, as in Rabetz's photographs, atmospheric illumination is everything. Rabetz's nocturnal work is sometimes visible only as a subtle glow within a darkened space, announcing the coming of night, as it rushes in to consume everything." Each of Rabetz's series has its own style and meaning with new books arriving on a regular basis. The next to be published is "The Ocean's Handwriting," concentrating on patterns created in the sand of York Beach, ME by water and Periwinkle snails.