Almost True

Steven Bollman | January 8 – February 10, 2018

The Gallery at Leica Store San Francisco is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, Almost True, featuring photographs by San Francisco based photographer Steven Bollman. Almost True comprises over thirty years of work from around the world and will be released as a hardcover book at the time of the exhibition.Bollman’s photographs enable us to glimpse mysterious depths below the surface details of everyday life. What might seem whimsical upon first glance gives way upon steady reflection to profound beauty and suffering. There is a melancholy to Bollman’s black and white images, a bittersweetness leavened by their uncanny knack for capturing everyday street life.The images within the series echo one another in composition and are tightly sequenced between the subjects and their gestures among many other elements within each frame.

Steven Bollman gained an interest in photography at an early age. He was shy but obsessively curious about the people and places around him and the camera helped him better understand. In 1983, he graduated from The School of Visual Arts in NYC after studying with Julio Mitchel. Freelance editorial and commercial assignments followed, with work published in U.S. News, Newsday, and World Report, Vanity Fair, and Aperture among others.

Steven Bollman currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

About the Artist

Steven Bollman was born in New York City and has been taking photos for over 40 years. He graduated with a BFA in Photography from The School of Visual Arts (SVA), NYC.

In January 2018, Bollman self-published his first photobook entitled Almost True on his imprint F8 Books. Almost True includes nine narratives in 81 photos from work spanning 34 years, covering many topics and from many places.

Almost True

The concept behind Almost True deals with the premise that people bring their own ideas and interpretations to deciphering photographs. The epigraph by Harold Pinter (from his play, Old Times) encapsulates the idea: “There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened.”

There are many ways to group photos; topic, time, place are familiar ones. Almost True, explores other ways to group photos and play with narrative. I’ve taken the 81 photos in the book and divided them into 9 sections. Each group relying on emotional, gestural, and graphic interplay to name a few.

The photos were taken over 34 years in many different places: California, Cuba, Sicily, Cuba, Haiti, Italy, Mississippi, New York, Oakland, Portugal, Santa Fe, and Spain.

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