Art/Place Gallery presents “Havana, A Place Out of Time,” a photographic journey by Ron Tarver, the gallery’s invited artist of 2006. The January show is the first time Art/Place has reached beyond Connecticut for their guest exhibit.

The places and objects that inhabit Ron Tarver’s photographs “conjure more questions than they do answers,” as the artist himself has said of his own work.

For Fort Gibson native Ron Tarver, each click of his camera’s shutter tells a story without a word being spoken.
Tarver, a photographer for the Philadelphia Inquirer for more than 20 years, is returning to Fort Gibson this week for an event honoring him and the book he brought to life with pictures -- “We Were There, Voices of African American Veterans, from World War II to the War in Iraq.”

Like many artistic breakthroughs, Ron Tarver’s moodily evocative urban and natural landscapes came about as the result of a fortuitous accident. “I printed by accident through the back of the paper, but I liked the look,” says Tarver, who now produces all his scenic work either through diffusion or printing through the back of the paper.

After 9/11 Yvonne Latty, a reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News, began researching a story that would take her a year and a half to finish. It wasn’t a piece for the paper: her notes were forming a book, “We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans,” a collection of interviews with 29 black vets who have served in conflicts from World War II through the war on terror.

Searching for home. Folk wisdom tells us we can’t go home again, yet in his new body of work, photographer Ron Tarver tries to do exactly that.

Ron Tarver’s career as a photojournalist merges in his art with his desire to make an image appear timeless ( as opposed to the photojournalistic emphasis on currency).

Ron Tarver’s been to Havana twice recently, and his resulting photo essay at Sande Webster Gallery (complete with catalog) -- “Ron Tarver: Havana, A Place Out of Time” -- is a velvety, romantic treatment long on poetry and short on tourist details.

What conclusions are we to draw when looking at dreamy photographs of iconic Philadelphia buildings from the recent turn of the century? The images, created by Linda Adelestein, Vincent David Feldman and Ron Tarver, could pass as artifacts from the late 1800s. Are they paeans to lost architectural craftsmanship?

Ron Tarver’s “Little House on the Drive” is a beautiful soft-focus image, purchased by the Philadelphia Museum of Art; he also received a juror’s award (from Vic Muniz).

There are some forceful and evocative photographs in a show dedicated to the “cowboys, ranchers, and rodeo competitors” struggling to “keep the African-American Western heritage alive. Sponsored by the NTU Art Association, “The Long Ride Home” exhibit of 30 photos taken over a four-year period by Ron Tarver is on display in the Promenade Gallery at Omniplex, 2100 NE 52.

Photojournalist Ron Tarver wants to bridge the gap between documentary and fine-art photography.

Images of the unsung cowboys: Although their story is seldom told, African-Americans have had an active role in the taming of the West. A high-tech photo exhibit documents the experience of the black cowboy.

A photographic essay documenting lives of African-American cowboys is displayed in the Conoco Gallery at Oklahoma State University in Okmulgee. The exhibit, titled, “A Long Ride Home, The Black Cowboy Experience in America,” includes photographs selected from a larger collection of images on Black rodeos in Okmulgee and Oakland, Calif.

If you’re leaving the area by way of Philadelphia International Airport, you might want to catch one last glimpse of the city before boarding the plane.
The work of Philadelphia-based photojournalist Ron Tarver will be featured at Terminal F, Concourse 2, of the airport.