Bo May’s Moon Jazz photographs showing in East Wing Gallery

Release Date: 8/24/2006. Expired: 10/14/2006

Moon Jazz, an exhibit of night photography by Bo May, will be displayed in the East Wing Gallery of The Renaissance Center in Dickson Sept. 1-Oct. 14.

An opening reception will be 6-7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 1. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.

May began shooting film in 1963 while working at the local PBS-TV station in Athens, Ga., and subsequently attended film school at the University of Southern California. He worked in Los Angeles (1967-1972) doing various freelance film work - including two years as a writer at Universal Studios.

May received a Writer’s Guild Award for Best Dramatic Teleplay in 1972 for Par for the Course, an episode of The Psychiatrist mini-series directed by Steven Spielberg.

From 1974 to 2004 May worked as a cinematographer, director and agency producer in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Nashville doing commercial film production and advertising - what he refers to as “30 years of wasted life in advertising” or “my life in commercial art with a lot of lunches and airplane travel.”

In 2003 his first novel, The Passion of Belle Rio, was published.

Still photography was always a part of May’s advertising work and continues today as a personal artistic expression.

The initial Moon Jazz images were taken on Dec. 15 and 16, 2005, at the beginning of the major lunar standstill. The major lunar standstill occurs in 18-year cycles as the moon approaches and retreats from its maximum declination of 28 degrees 22 minutes north. This moon was the northernmost winter full moon until Dec. 27, 2023.

After taking several images of this exceedingly brilliant full moon, high in the dark sky and framed by the towering pines trees, May could not stand still and was caught up in a frenzy of kinetic photographic activity. These images became the Moon Jazz series.

Images were taken with a Nikon D70 using a combination of shutter speeds and camera movements, including zoom during exposure. This improvisation with photographic techniques produced one surprising image after another - the true “process of discovery” that is an integral part of the creative process.

Numerous images combine the moon with non-celestial light sources. There are no Photoshop enhancements, although there are different printing treatments of some images.

Born in Tallahassee, Fla., May is a graduate of the University of Georgia and lives with his wife on a farm west of Nashville.

For more information on the Moon Jazz exhibit in the East Wing Gallery of The Renaissance Center, call (615)740-5600.

The Renaissance Center is a fine arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Visual Arts Gallery page for more about the gallery.

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