Carl Geisler

October 16 - November 15, 2009, Gallery 14, Hopewell, NJ.
A Most Haunted Place: Ghostly Images

It’s All About the Car

To families all through America "Hot Rod Nights" on Main Street are like apple pie and the American flag. They gather on Main Streets across America to bring back memories of the cars from their youth, the cars they couldn't afford but dreamed of owning. Now, often grandfathers, they share their experiences with the youngsters standing next to them. They talk about those fast cars, drag racing down small town roads, with the dice hanging from the mirrors, the painted stripping along the sides; a reminder of their youth long gone.

"It's All About the Car" is a photographic reflection on the hot rod. The images are reminiscent of a time before our teenagers were inside spending hours playing computer games; a time when getting the driver's license and perhaps even a first car was an important rite of passage into independence and adulthood.

For Carl Geisler, the photographer, it feels somewhat strange that these are contemporary images created with a digital camera; hours spent processing them on a computer, more hours printing them on a digital printer. The creation of these photographs is definitely modern, but the subject harks back to an earlier America, one that is past but lives on in these powerful and beautiful automobiles.

For the photographer this show is meant to bring families together, for a dad to tell his son that he dreamed of driving that 60's GTO or Hemi. With some of the images you will recognize the car, with others there is just a hint of what model it might have been. Will you be viewing this show standing next to that girl you tried to impress on cruise night? Or is she a memory long gone as well?

November 17 to December 3, 2007 Show:
It's All About the Bike

Carl H. Geisler has been a photographer since the age of ten, when he used a Brownie Hawkeye camera. At the age of 13 he was given a Rolleiflex and shortly after convinced his parents to allow him to set up a darkroom in the basement of their home. In the late 50s he won prizes in the Kodak National High School Competition and was photo editor of his high school senior yearbook.

He went on to attend Bard College, receiving his B.A. in 1964, and continued his education at Long Island University, working toward a master's in Education.

For the next 40 years he was owner and president of Morse Metal Products Company, Inc., a manufacturer of material handling equipment.

Although he continued to photograph extensively as an amateur, it was not until his retirement in 2004 that he began to enter contests once again. Since then he has won prizes in the Franklin Park, N.J., juried Art Show, in the Somerset County Business Partnership's juried Photo Contest and in 2007 two of his photographs were accepted for exhibition at the Phillips' Mill Photographic Exhibition.

Carl is currently President of the Princeton Photography Club as well as a member of Gallery 14 in Hopewell, NJ. He is an avid car enthusiast and former instructor for the Porsche Club and other car clubs. He loves to bike ride, having recently completed his 18,000th mile on his road bike.