The images selected for this exhibit by Thomas Winter are from a series called “My Familiar Places,” photographs made in California and the Southwest during 1977 to 2009.  The photos are presented in groups from Sacramento and the surrounding valley, the Sierra Nevada, Yosemite, and east to Hwy 395, the foothills in the ranch lands that have grown into Roseville and Folsom, and the town of Crockett across the Carquinez Straight from Vallejo.  These are Cosgrove’s familiar places because they were where he lived and worked and they deeply influenced his life as a photographer.

Thomas is fascinated by the view or a subject that is seemingly uninteresting, overlooked, or commonplace, “as these represent landscapes that are truly Californian”.  “Landscapes sculpted by the people we were and have become; images with graphic qualities – perspective, shapes, massing, and gradations of tone – that are the elements of my vision synthesized in photography,” says Cosgrove of his work.