RMAC / PAST EXHIBITIONS / NATIVE SON: THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF HAROLD LEE JONES

Roswell native Harold Lee Jones had his first adventure in photography when he was a sophomore at Goddard High School in the 1970s. This early interest in photography stayed with Jones throughout the intervening years. It was around the time of his fortieth birthday that the passion for creating photographic images returned. Jones was on vacation in northern New Mexico when he stopped in Española to gather some provisions for a planned fishing trip. There, he bought a couple of disposable cameras. Jones had such a wonderful time shooting photos that he soon forgot about the fish and went back to town to purchase more disposable cameras to document his trip and to “capture the essence of the New Mexican landscape.”

Jones began his photographic journey anew. Living in Dallas, Texas he would often make sojourns to New Mexico to see his family and shoot subjects that interested him. Jones’s work has developed through the investigation of various themes including landscape, architecture, and images from popular culture. Jones’s photographic investigation includes the mastery of traditional photography and processes in the darkroom as well as his immersion into the realm of contemporary digital photography.

Native Son will feature two bodies of work created by Harold Lee Jones over the last ten years. The Roswell Series celebrates the popular culture imagery that is unique to the events that transpired when a purported UFO crashed on a ranch near Roswell in the summer of 1947. The City of Rocks is derived from hundreds of images that Harold Lee Jones has shot over a four-year period while on many pilgrimages to the City of Rocks State Park in Grant County, New Mexico. Jones has created a meticulous photo study of the Chihuahuan desert and the monolithic stone formations rising from its floor, keeping records as to the time of day and season that the image was captured. These images form a magical sense of place and time for the standing giants of geologic wonder created by a volcanic eruption some 34.9 million years ago.







	-2010- Roswell Artist-in-Residence: Dorota Mytych Native Son: The Photography of Harold Lee Jones Cool Art Raymond Wielgus: A Connoisseur's Eye Roswell Artist-in-Residence: Larry Bob Phillips Roswell Artist-in-Residence: Pang-chieh Hsu Roswell Artist-in-Residence: Debra M. Smith Emil Bisttram and the Taos School of Art Roswell Artist-in-Residence: Janice Jakielski Wanda Gág, Howard Cook, and Barbara Latham: 20 Years of Illustrations The Ginormous Painting Show Mary Peck: Upon the Horizon Back to index	Native Son: The Photography of Harold Lee Jones November 20, 2010 - May 15, 2011
		Harold Lee Jones, Morning, Spring (detail), 2009, pigment ink print, Courtesy of the Artist.
			Roswell native Harold Lee Jones had his first adventure in photography when he was a sophomore at Goddard High School in the 1970s. This early interest in photography stayed with Jones throughout the intervening years. It was around the time of his fortieth birthday that the passion for creating photographic images returned. Jones was on vacation in northern New Mexico when he stopped in Española to gather some provisions for a planned fishing trip. There, he bought a couple of disposable cameras. Jones had such a wonderful time shooting photos that he soon forgot about the fish and went back to town to purchase more disposable cameras to document his trip and to “capture the essence of the New Mexican landscape.” Jones began his photographic journey anew. Living in Dallas, Texas he would often make sojourns to New Mexico to see his family and shoot subjects that interested him. Jones’s work has developed through the investigation of various themes including landscape, architecture, and images from popular culture. Jones’s photographic investigation includes the mastery of traditional photography and processes in the darkroom as well as his immersion into the realm of contemporary digital photography. Native Son will feature two bodies of work created by Harold Lee Jones over the last ten years. The Roswell Series celebrates the popular culture imagery that is unique to the events that transpired when a purported UFO crashed on a ranch near Roswell in the summer of 1947. The City of Rocks is derived from hundreds of images that Harold Lee Jones has shot over a four-year period while on many pilgrimages to the City of Rocks State Park in Grant County, New Mexico. Jones has created a meticulous photo study of the Chihuahuan desert and the monolithic stone formations rising from its floor, keeping records as to the time of day and season that the image was captured. These images form a magical sense of place and time for the standing giants of geologic wonder created by a volcanic eruption some 34.9 million years ago.


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