Editor’s Note: This story was originally published and has been updated with additional information.
Camera reporter for multimedia artist and photographer Jed Ullrich sees a lighted harpist playing a show near the Texas Theatre. However, Ullrich’s eyes see the 47 strings of the harp as a “forest”.
Ullrich adjusts the aperture on his Canon EOS 5D Mark III to give the camera room to breathe, adjusting his body in the female harp to match his imagination – her face hidden behind “trees.”
Now, Ullrich feels it – a moment he describes as sublime, seeing exactly what he was picturing in his head.
“Then I shot,” Ullrich said.
The result of that button press found itself hanging on a wall at the opening reception of Hear/Here, a gallery at the Patterson-Appleton Art Center, as part of Denton’s multimedia festival, Thin Line Fest.
“It’s really my instinct,” Ullrich said.
When he moved to Dallas four years ago, Ullrich had never heard of Thin Line Fest until a friend who works at the festival encouraged him to present his work during the New Year’s Day celebration.
Ullrich quickly called and handed over five photos. Only “Pluck,” a photo taken by artist Hexpartner during Dallas Ambient Music Night, made the cut.
This picture shows the Hexpartner made inside his harp. His face is partially obscured by the ropes, with a large video display displaying art by visual artist Sean Miller.
“It makes me feel free,” said Lizech Grimaldo, a university student. It is like a forest of light.
By day, Ullrich is a multimedia producer for the hospital, documenting what doctors and administrators want to communicate to patients through media. However, when he is not working at the hospital, he takes photography gigs and works on other creative projects, such as filmmaking.
“The ability to work with the field of view,” Ullrich said. “To focus on perspective, take in the details and subtleties of anything in the scene, the perspective of your subject, the lighting and where it lives. […] that’s what makes me happy. What is it to look at and expose? [viewers] I may never have seen it before.”
Ullrich said he gets his artistic inspiration from video games and game design. He is inspired by the ability to direct the viewer’s gaze in a certain way and moment, to build a world around them that is “immortal”.
“People can’t express themselves with words alone,” said one photographer who wanted to be known by their stage name, The Pseudoform. Communication is the basis of it all.
However, Ullrich said game design is not his natural calling. Instead, he prefers to define a narrative and a “slice of life,” seeing photography as a way to put others on a “pedestal,” something he learned after working as a radio DJ at his university.
Ullrich first attended Texas A&M University in 2015, where she worked on the student radio program KANM.
Finally, one of the troops left, leaving Ullrich several times in the air. After the operation, he was given the opportunity to cover the “Austin Terror Fest”, a metal music festival, where he was able to test a professional camera for the first time in his life since his school.
“I didn’t know what I was doing when I looked back,” Ullrich said. “God, I made some mistakes.”
He then took a photography and cinematography course the following semester after discovering his love for photography. During this class, he learned from Glen Vigus, a photography professor whom he considered a mentor.
“Pluck,” he said, borrows the same principles that Vigus taught.
This course determined how he would approach photography throughout his life and career.
“That was a life-changing lesson,” Ullrich said. […] life changed.”
Ullrich said he gets his remaining inspiration from religion, a Democratic Socialist and an activist. He based his life’s work on elevating the “human experience,” having what he called “compassion for your neighbor.”
Continuing, Ullrich said he plans to get involved and go to the Thin Line more in the future, regretting having “slept on it” for so long since moving to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
“I felt very proud and friendly [seeing my photograph on the wall]” Ullrich said: “We are here to show that people are surrendering. They crave compassion for people as much as I love to contribute to my work and show who they support.”
On March 25, “Pluck” was announced as the winner of the Hear / Here album, and Ullrich officially became the Winner of the Thin Line Award.
“It really feels surreal and humbling,” Ullrich said in an email to North Texas Daily. “Amidst the hustle and bustle and as a young man who was always growing up with imposter syndrome, I’m glad to be seen among the best artists and famous names on the show.”
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