{"id":19455,"date":"2025-06-16T15:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T15:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/?p=19455"},"modified":"2025-06-16T15:18:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T15:18:20","slug":"pasquale-cuomo-five-decades-through-the-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/?p=19455","title":{"rendered":"Pasquale Cuomo: Five Decades Through the Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pasquale J. Cuomo<\/a> didn\u2019t stumble into photography\u2014he walked into it with purpose, camera in hand, still a teenager. What began as a simple curiosity turned into a life\u2019s work, spanning over fifty years. An American photographer rooted in experience and passion, Cuomo has seen the artform shift from the darkroom days of film to the clean precision of digital\u2014and now, with deliberate choice, he\u2019s gone back to film. His career has moved through fashion, architecture, advertising, weddings, public relations, and legal documentation. By 1985, Cuomo was no longer dabbling. He had a full-fledged operation, complete with his own lab, serious gear, and an impressive list of clients. The work never narrowed to one subject. He captured it all\u2014people, structures, landscapes, machines\u2014always with the eye of someone trying to find something real behind the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lately, Cuomo has been turning back to landscapes, film, and memory. His recent works are quiet but full. They show a return not just to places but to the kind of process that made him fall in love with photography in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In October 2024, Cuomo made his way back to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. His last visit was over 30 years ago. This time, he was 70, carrying gear up the steep trail to Clingman\u2019s Dome\u2014the highest point in the park\u2014hoping to catch the sunset. The weather didn\u2019t exactly cooperate, but he still managed to create a few images that made the whole effort worth it. Cuomo used his trusted Hasselblad 500C\/M with a 150mm lens and Ektar film, a setup that speaks to his dedication to analog craft. For Cuomo, the climb was more than physical. It was a return to a younger self and a reminder that the land still has something to show, even if you\u2019ve seen it before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That same month, he also photographed the Shenandoah Mountains, just off Roanoke, Virginia. This part of the country clearly holds something for him. He talks about wanting to spend several more days there on future trips, just wandering with his camera. The early morning fog caught in the valleys, the stillness of the ridges\u2014it\u2019s the kind of beauty that asks for patience, which Cuomo has in spades. Again, he used the Hasselblad, this time with a 50mm Zeiss lens. The wide-angle captures the scale of the scene, but there\u2019s nothing flashy or exaggerated about the image. It\u2019s quiet, just like the mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then there\u2019s the aircraft work. This is a different kind of project but just as personal. On Memorial Day weekend, Cuomo photographed one of only two B-29 bombers still flying, in Farmingdale, New York. He has a growing archive of aviation images\u2014both commercial planes and warbirds. His fascination isn\u2019t just aesthetic. Cuomo once worked as a machine tool salesman and visited aircraft plants all over the country. His interest is mechanical, functional, reverent. These planes aren\u2019t just objects; they\u2019re stories with rivets and wings. The B-29 shot was taken with the same Hasselblad setup, and like his landscapes, it reflects a respect for structure, form, and effort. Capturing a massive aircraft like the B-29 isn\u2019t easy, especially with limitations around access and space. Cuomo doesn\u2019t just document these planes\u2014he interprets them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What ties all this work together is care. Cuomo isn\u2019t rushing anything. He chooses film on purpose, knowing that every frame costs time and money. He carries heavy gear up trails at an age when most people are putting theirs away. His images don\u2019t scream for attention\u2014they hold your gaze quietly, drawing you in without pretense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cuomo\u2019s work is less about spectacle and more about presence. Whether it’s a ridge wrapped in morning mist or a hulking aircraft parked under moody skies, he gives the subject room to breathe. There\u2019s confidence in the framing, a kind of earned simplicity that comes from doing something for fifty years and still finding new things to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s not chasing trends or looking for social media clicks. He\u2019s walking up a hill, gear on his back, hoping for the right light. That\u2019s the work. And for Cuomo, it\u2019s still worth doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pasquale J. Cuomo didn\u2019t stumble into photography\u2014he walked into it with purpose, camera in hand, still a teenager. What began as a simple curiosity turned into a life\u2019s work, spanning over fifty years. An American photographer rooted in experience and passion, Cuomo has seen the artform shift from the darkroom days of film to the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artist"},"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19460,"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19455\/revisions\/19460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artoday.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}