Fort Worth photographer Steven Watson produces gelatin silver prints, many of which were shot on recent trips to Japan and Italy.

Traveling assignments as the Amon Carter Museum’s staff photographer have offered Watson the opportunity to photograph locations around the world, as well as in his own region of Texas. In Tokyo, Watson photographed rituals of prayer at temples and other religious shrines.

In Turin, Italy, he photographed marble statutes in the gardens at the Palazzo Reale, as well as animal specimens at Turin’s Museum of Natural History. Watson also includes in his exhibitions photographs of roadside memorials and vernacular folk art displays shot in the North Texas area. Watson began documenting these unique creations approximately a decade ago. In one photograph titled Mum, Grapevine, Texas, 2002, flowers have been placed as a memorial at the base of a tree. The flowers lie within a shadow created by the photographer himself. The proliferation of these roadside offerings to the deceased, crosses adorned with flowers and personal memorabilia have fascinated Watson for many years, as has the creativity of the somewhat obsessed individuals that present their art to the public via their front yard. An example can be seen in Bicycle Tree, Fort Worth, 2002. A bare tree is purposely filled with various bicycles and motorbikes as a form of folk art, appearing as if tossed into the tree by a tornado. Typically, Watson does not take “straight” photographs, choosing instead to shoot his subjects from perspectives that remove, question, or distort the context of the subject or place. He often places one subject in front of another or selectively omits a portion of the main subject. The photographs are confidently composed images, interpreted directly from what the camera captures with only the circular format of the presentation manipulated by Watson.

The “vignette mask” presentation has been used for decades in portrait photography to isolate the subject from its’ surrounding and to soften the transition between subject and picture frame. Traditionally the mask is ovoid; however, Watson has created circular masks he places in front of the camera lens to achieve his desired effect. He believes it offers another tool to isolate the subject from its context as well as creating the desired circular motif.