Audio By Carbonatix
The disclaimer on the Hal Samples Gallery website sums up the artist’s agent provocateur: “…You may find opinions you disagree with or even opinions that disagree with each other—I call them the beginning of conversations I have with myself…” Since 2003 Samples’ camera has dialogued with both sides of the city’s economic divide: the healthy, shiny-faired brick-dwellers, but mostly the less-fortunate street huggers. It has a “personal experience” lens that pulls the indigent from anonymity into civic focus. A few bad life choices back in 1998 exposed Samples to a new life on the street—the stark beauty of sunlight hitting an unshaven face at 5:30 a.m. Click forward a few years and the photographer’s Hero to Zero project was central to the philanthropic intercity remedy for Dallas’ growing homeless. Samples doesn’t go for the glamour shot, he captures your story—in black and white or lively color, saturated grain or flurry of motion, an averted eye or with a cocktail of paramours. His lens not only doesn’t lie, it listens and your life story begins. Hal Samples Gallery opens with a reception from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday at 2814 Main St. #101 in Dallas. Call 214-334-4481.
Fri., April 4, 6-10 p.m., 2008
