Opera explores photography’s possibilities in Lisbon exhibition

John Opera, chair of the Department of Art in the College of Arts and Sciences and head of the photography program, takes a unique approach to his photos by including an element of unpredictability to his process. He uses a handmade pinhole device and attaches it to his digital camera. With no glass and little ability to correct the image, the device introduces uncertainty into the photographs he creates.

“I’m drawn to the contradiction of using the most primitive form of image-making with a professional digital camera,” Opera says. “It strips the act of photographing a subject down to basic terms while also opening up a more holistic way of thinking about what photography is and where it came from.”

That approach is at the heart of “Nossa Estrela,” Opera’s solo exhibition on view through Nov. 8 at the contemporary art gallery called DOCUMENT Lisbon in Portugal. The exhibition brings together selections from his “Sun/Sky” series, spanning 2014 to 2026, alongside new gum bichromate works developed through five years of printing experiments.

Opera has been photographing the sun and considering its possibilities as a subject for almost two decades. An invitation last year to include several “Sun/Sky” works in a group exhibition at the Renaissance Society in Chicago prompted him to revisit the series and explore its connection to his more recent printing experiments.

Bringing the works together in “Nossa Estrela” offered a chance to see how his approach has evolved.

“What continues to drive my interest in the work is the profound disconnect between human experience and the vast scales of time and space represented by the sun,” he says.

The exhibition also invites viewers to consider photographs as physical objects. Opera’s cyanotypes and gum bichromate works are printed on linen and canvas, with photographic emulsions applied by hand. Up close, viewers can see variations in the surfaces, pigments and applications that are difficult to appreciate on a screen.

“The works are photographs, but I am interested in foregrounding them as things that possess their own materiality,” Opera says.

His willingness to experiment with tools and materials extends into his teaching at UB, where he encourages students to reconsider what defines a photograph.

“My studio practice and teaching have always informed one another,” he says. “One thing I try to emphasize with students is that photography doesn’t have to be defined by a particular camera, technology or even a conventional photographic print.”

In “Nossa Estrela,” that philosophy takes shape through the combination of early photographic processes, handmade tools, digital cameras and contemporary methods of producing negatives. Opera encourages his students to bring a similar curiosity to their own work.

“I want students to understand that they have the freedom to question what a photograph can be rather than simply accepting the conventions built into contemporary cameras and software.”

Opera’s work is part of the permanent collections of the DePaul Museum of Art (Chicago), the Burchfield-Penney Art Center (Buffalo), and the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis), among other institutions.