AMSET hosts ‘Dennis Moncla: Freeze Frame’ through May 26
Photographing birds is an exercise in patience, Dennis Moncla said.
“I find my spot, I find the location I want, I find the composition I want, and I wait for them to come to me,” he said.
The Art Museum is hosting “Dennis Moncla: Freeze Frame,” an exhibition of his bird photography, through May 26. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with Houston’s biennial FotoFest. A free reception is set for 2-4 p.m., April 21.
Moncla’s work encompasses a wide range of imagery, but for “Freeze Frame” he chose to focus on birds. He said he does not call himself a birder, although he said he has always thought they were beautiful but wanted to narrow the focus for this show.
“They’re so hard to get in a good position, catching them flying is 10 times harder than catching them standing,” he said. “It’s the challenge and I like creating art. If you’ll notice, they’re not just a bird sitting on a stick somewhere.”
The photos of the birds in flight are technically excellent as well as artistically stunning. As befitting the show’s title, Moncla freezes the birds in flight, but he also draws the viewer into the image by his skill with composition.
“I love the use of negative space, I don’t think people use enough of it,” he said. “There are when I want the dramatic image and I crop in really tight, but in general I would say 50 to 60 percent of my images are using negative space in a creative way.”
This allows the birds in flight to move through the image.
“I think, inherently, it becomes uncomfortable for somebody to look at a photo if I put the bird all the way up to the edge of it, and the bird is either looking into the edge of the photo or flying into the edge of the photo and there’s no room for it to go. I think it makes us uncomfortable — it needs someplace to go.”
Moncla, who is a partner at Colorado Canyon in Beaumont, said he used to borrow his parents Instamatic camera when he was young. As he grew up, he continued with his hobby. When his daughter started dance classes he wanted to photograph her but realized he didn’t have the equipment to capture the movement.
“The camera gear I had was nowhere near good enough because that’s very difficult to do,” he said. “So, I would upgrade my gear and I thought, ‘OK, this is it. Now I can go take pictures of my daughter dancing.’ Then she would dance again, and I found out I was wrong. I still couldn’t take pictures. So, I would just keep going through this cycle of upgrading my gear until I finally achieved where I am now. I got really into bird photography a lot. I was always into it, but I finally had the gear that I could go do it with.”
Moncla is active with the Beaumont Camera Club, serving a president for three years, where he teaches classes.
“I coined the phrase then that holds true for every aspect of photography, not just birds and wildlife, and that’s, ‘You’re in charge of your background.’ If you don’t like it move,” he said.
A good photograph should put the viewer into the image, Moncla said.
“For birds and any wildlife, you want to get on their level — that’s what brings you into the photo,” he said. “If you’re shooting from a standing position looking down on something, it doesn’t bring anybody into the photo. When you get on eye level with your subject, if it’s wildlife, you’re getting down level with it. You’ve now brought your viewer into its world and that’s what makes them interesting.”
The birds frozen in flight are dynamic and exciting, but a highlight of the exhibition is the opposite. “Hazy Heron” features the bird serenely floating among some reeds. The negative space is almost white caused by a thick haze. The image looks like a Japanese painting, a subtle balance of simplicity and grace.
Moncla said he sees the world through the lens of a photographer’s eye.
“I’m driving down the road with my wife and we’re trying to get somewhere I don’t have time to stop, but I’m looking at this scene going, ‘Oh my gosh, I wish I could stop and take that picture because that’s beautiful,’” he said “I see the angle. I know exactly which way I want to go take it. I can see it.”
When he was young, Moncla said he had a desire to immortalize what he saw, almost like a cataloger.
“I wanted to make the scene or whatever I’m looking at permanent and I learned it wasn’t just about that — it was about my creative side,” he said.
Moncla said he would love to take trip and do nothing but landscape photography with a medium format, which is two and a half times the sensor size of a 35-millimeter camera.
“The detail you’re able to capture is just stunning,” he said. “It’s just a one click, one picture. It’s not like mine. I can take 30 frames in a second with my camera. With that it’s one frame in a couple of minutes. And I think I would have a ball doing it. It would just be a luxury for me.”
AMSET is located at 500 Main St. in Beaumont. For more, visit amset.org.
his story first ran in the April 14, 2024 Art of Living section of The Beaumont Enterprise.
English with a bit of Texas 