La Jolla-Raised Photographer Takes Talent to the Waterfront

Article By Maria Conner
La Jolla Light

An upcoming photography exhibit on the working waterfront of San Diego is particularly interesting because the photographer is about as far removed from the subject as one can get. Ming C.Lowe, a self taught artist and photographer, lives in the rural mountains above Palm Desert, 4,000 feet up, in a pinyon forest at the end of a dirt road. Lowe was commissioned by the Port of San Diego to document the people, places and products of the San Diego bay waterfront as part of their public art program.    "It was done as a project by the public art program to show how art can get people from very diverse backgrounds into the same room and into dialogue," said Catherine Sass, public art director for the Port of San Diego.

"Our hope was the working waterfront people would enjoy the experience, and the art community would enjoy the exposure to the working waterfront. We looked at several photographers. We had a jury look at them, and they were drawn to Ming's work because it's very dramatic."

  Reaction to the exhibit has been positive, with a bit of astonishment thrown in, Sass said. Lowe said she expected the waterfront to be chaotic, dirty, grimy subject, but found the opposite to be true.
"It's really quite lovely, not what you would expect from industry." Lowe said
Sass said the working waterfront operates on an orderly, precise fashion that one might not expect.
"It's like a finely choreographed event," she said.

   The project took three months to complete, resulting in an exhibition of 30 photographs. lowe often took 600 to 700 pictures on her digital camera during 12 hour sessions and then spent hours editing them. She used only available lighting, finding the early morning or evening the most inspiring time to work.
She then cropped and contrasted the photographs before printing them.
All of the pictures are color, except for a single black-and-white scene that Lowe chose as the fulcrum of the exhibit.
From the top a ladder, Lowe photographed workers leaving during a shift change. It was a rare opportunity, amid the automation of machinery of the waterfront, to capture the human factor, she said.

   Lowe knew she would find plenty of inspiration on the waterfront before she snapped the first shot. She is fascinated by anything industrial: motors, ropes, chains, metal gears, wood and fire.
"Industry has all those elements," she said. "Any up-and-running industry is compelling for me."
Lowe didn't set out to be an artist or photographer. it took her several years to heed the call of her inner voice and learn that creative venues were a legitimate livelihood. Born in Washington D.C. , Lowe spent much of her childhood in la Jolla.

"La Jolla was a small town when I grew up there", she said. "In those days, everyone knew everyone. i don't think it's like that any more. La Jolla means "the jewel" and it really was. Back in those days, I would hear the coyotes at night. There was nothing between the beach and the hills. It was pretty rural."
   At the age of 10, she was photographed for the la Jolla Light, posing on the end of a diving board, showing off medals she had won for completive swimming.

Her family life was somewhat disruptive, and Lowe attended virtually every school in La Jolla.
   At 15 years old, she struck out on her own. A few years later, she was a divorced mother.
"When I moved to the desert, I had two small children. I was divorced and I had a tenth-grade education," she said.
   The circumstances led her to her first artistic outlet: painting.
"Painting was something i could do myself without depending on anyone," she said. "My first stuff was on paper bags. Someone saw it and said they would give me $300.00 if I would do what was on the paper bags as a painting."
   Her first camera was an inexpensive point-and-shoot model. She began taking pictures to use as source material for her paintings. She happened to be in Washington D.C., when the terrorist events of September 11, 2002 occurred.

   The photos she took there and at Ground Zero in new York triggered the realization that she had captured historic moments on film. Photography became another means of composing and expressing what she saw around her.
"I'd never seen photographs like that before, and historically, I thought it was important," she said.
   Lowe was drawn to industrial settings for her photography and traveled across country building her portfolio.
"I would go to the mayor of the town, and say, "I want to do industrial photographs, can you get me in?," she said.
   Lowe's exhibition will be on display in several locations around San Diego through Sep. 4. For more information, visit www,portofsandiego.org or call (619) 686-6200