The Photography of John Doddato:
In Pursuit of the American Landscape

On view March 10, 2015 – March 10, 2016

Born in Sayre, Pennsylvania, John Doddato is a local photographer who lived and worked in the neighboring town of Big Flats, New York. His travels across America have been filtered through the lens of his camera, and are here documented by the silver-gelatin prints so generously gifted to The Rockwell Museum by the artist.

Artist Statement 

“I was there in cool darkness of the early morning, waiting for the first signs of daylight in the eastern sky. I wondered to myself aloud if I was in the right spot for the first shaft of sunlight to strike the dunes that were around me. Other times I felt the crispness of the morning air as I stood along a stream that churned its way through the valley, surrounded by a deep forest of old growth trees. I was there, standing on top of the world and my eyes could only see the wild vastness of the land that stretched out for miles before me and would proclaim that I owned everything I could see because I shared it with no one. Hot afternoons hiking in rugged canyons with the blistering sun overhead, always searching for shade and a place to rest if only for a short while. I was there and enjoyed it. Foreign lands, strange voices, and odd looks but I was there. Deep into remote areas a foreign traveler rarely wanders, but I was there and understood some of the life around me. Days of frozen fingers and toes with no feeling, fighting my doubts and the bitter cold, but the drive of my purpose kept me there. To be able to wander through a land of sky and trees, water and rocks, makes me thankful I was there. And it was the camera that took me there.” 

-John Doddato