A Photographer’s ‘Indecisive Moment’ Unfolds Saturday

Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst, the renowned French photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson liked to say. As a freelance photographer for nearly the past two decades, Beth Herzhaft has not only crossed that threshold but has come full circle to an artistic state of mind that she uses to challenge certain stereotypes about her field. 

The subject matter of Herzhaft’s photography is deliberately unpretentious—a saltshaker, a piece of Lego, blotches on a brick wall. In fact, the images she captures through her lens are “a mischievous reaction to ‘epic’ photography,” as she puts it—an exploration of the “tension between meaning and meaninglessness.”

In much of photography—particularly so-called “area” photography—there is no “decisive moment,” says Herzhaft, a self-taught photographer who lives in Silver Lake. “What is captured is a comma rather than an exclamation point.”

And so it’s no surprise that the title of Herzhaft’s first solo exhibition is also steeped in the idea of uncertainty, which, of course, has long had philosophical and scientific implications. Titled “The Indecisive Moment,” the exhibition opens Saturday, Nov. 3, at the Curve Line Space art gallery on Colorado Boulevard. (The opening reception runs from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.).

As a photographer, Herzhaft works with numerous publications, advertising agencies and music record companies. She spends the rest of her work time shooting fine art and is currently working on a series of contemporary photographic landscapes.

Click here to view more of Herzhaft’s work.

The Indecisive Moment, Curve Line Space, 1577 Colorado Blvd. Opening reception: Saturday, Nov. 3, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.