David LaBella’s large-format photographs are visual venerations of the magnificent American landscape. Deeply committed to film photography as opposed to the digital camera, LaBella examines and extols the organic patterns made by sparkling stones, illuminated leaves or lush flora. Growing up in the backyard of an industrial factory, LaBella early cultivated a soothing sensitivity to the surrounding woods. “I spent my formative years in those fields and forests, and gained an insight into the rhythms and cycles of the natural world and an understanding of my own physical abilities and a confidence in my own judgment,” explains LaBella. The sequences and secrets of America’s brooks, brushes and vivacious foliage are the focus of LaBella’s lens, inviting the viewer to revel in a quickly transforming scenery. With his straightforward, intimate photographs of the nuanced American landscape, LaBella offers us a solace from the callous artifice of the industrial, developed world.
A Connecticut native, LaBella lives and works in Middletown, Connecticut.