Interview with Dan McCormack — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

Dan McCormack studied Photography at the Institute of Design in Chicago Next, he earned an MFA in Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He began photographing the nude with Wendy, his wife while in graduate school. Then for over fifty years he explored various cameras, techniques and processes while photographing the nude as a central theme.
In 1982, Dan McCormack won a NYSCA-CAPS Photography Fellowship with a series of infrared nude images made of Wendy. With that series, he produced a monograph, "BODY LIGHT-Passages in a Relationship" in 1989.
In 1998 Dan began to work with pinhole camera photography. In 2009, he won the Ultimate Eye Foundation’s grant for Figurative Photography and had his work featured in an exhibition at the Peninsula Museum of Art in Belmont, CA.

In January 2010, Dan McCormack had a solo show at the Photography Center of the Capitol District in Troy, NY. He showed over fifty images from ten diverse series made from 1990 to 2010. In May 2013, Dan had a solo show at the Barrett Art Center in Poughkeepsie, NY. In this exhibit he showed 28 images from his “Nude at Home” series. Then in January 2016 he had a solo show of the “Nude at Home” series at the Beacon Artists Union in Beacon, NY and in May of 2016, Dan had another show with newer images of the “Nude at Home” series at the Arts Upstairs Gallery in Phoenicia, NY.

Dan was one of the three founders of the Center for Photography in Woodstock in 1975
and in 1989 he was a founding member of Gallery 3 in Philadelphia, PA.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, and Dan was not able to continue doing model shoots.
Dan went to his image files and began making Grids with the extra image files from his
Cell phone shoots.

Dan McCormack has taught photography at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY for 30 years and he is currently head of the film photography program..

Can you tell us about the moment you decided to pursue a career as an artist?

I started college in a program of engineering. At the end of the first year I was doing poorly because I had little interest in the subjects that I was studying. I went to an adviser at the college and took an Ability Test and discovered that I had interests in Art. I had never taken any art

classes in High School. The Advisor suggest that I transfer to the Institute of Design at the college. I did not know that the Institute of Design was the continuation of the famous Bauhaus but in Chicago and I would be studying with Aaron Siskind.

What kind of an artist do you ultimately see yourself?

From studying with Arron Siskind, Wyn Bullock, Joseph Jachna and Arthur Siegel, I saw myself making personal photography not commercial photography.

What do you want your art to convey to the people who see it?

My photograph for over fifty years has been focused on the nude and I am attempting to make expressive and sensual images.

What is the meaning or creative motivation behind your work?

I wish to NOT REPEAT imagery so I have explored, diverse cameras and print techniques and processes. I have explored multiple image techniques of Grids at least four times over fifty years with very different imagery. The most recent being 3x3 cell phone grids for the past five years.

Can you tell us about the process you use to create your works?

For the past five years I am shooting with a Cell Phone Camera. I had spent about ten years shooting with a Pinhole Camera and 8x10 inch film. I would shoot my fifteen cameras and the exposures were two minutes with one 600 watt studio light in model shoots of the model nude in her home,. The process was very slow and deliberate. But now with the Cell Phone Camera my images are spontaneous. In a session with a model in the studio, her home or the landscape I shoot 3000 to 4000 images.

What is your typical workday routine?

I may shoot about once every other week. The bulk of my time is spent looking at the images that I had collected and seeing what emotions that I had captured, I am also a full time professor of Photography at a local college.

Where do you find inspiration?

My interest in my photography is TRUTH. I seek expressive moments and sequences. Fashion in an image usually indicated a “time” and that does not interest me.

What motivates you to create?

Seeing something that SPEAKS to me as I am shooting is my motivation. When the model has

Self confidence and is sensual in “being” is when I find imagery.

What has been your most outstanding achievement to date?

I have won a NYS CAPS Fellowship in 1982 and a Ultimate Eye Foundation, Figurative Photography Fellowship in 2009 in California. Plus 50 plus years of teaching College level Photography and exhibiting my photographs for also over 50 plus years in Local, National and International shows.