MiamiPhotoFest Presents

Intimate Experiences: 

Andy Summers & Ralph Gibson

MiamiPhotoFest and Kimpton-Epic-Miami Hotel, invites you to spend a intimate afternoon with musician and photographers Andy Summers and Ralph Gibson as they welcome you to MiamiPhotoFest’s Intimate Experience Series.

“The qualities I am looking for are musical. That is the condition. You think of music in terms of harmony, line, shape, volume, quietness, dynamics… I think all of those terms can be translated into photography.” - Andy Summers

“Melody is to Music as Reality is to Photography." – Ralph Gibson

© andy summers - © ralph gibson

Both Andy Summers and Ralph Gibson will share intimate stories from their illustrious careers against the backdrop of a multi media show featuring exotic and surreal photographic and musical sequences of both their works.

Long time friends, Gibson and Summers share an interest in the legacy of Surrealism and their work is firmly rooted in their personal experiences.

Summers reached the peak of fame and success as guitarist for the rock band The Police. He’s been on the road with his camera since his early days with the band, capturing life on the road, this has resulted in the publication of a number of well received books.

Gibson is perhaps best known for his fragmentary and secretive photographs of the human figure. His black-and-white images, built around bold light and dark shadow, are instantly recognizable to the legions of admirers who collect his prints and the more than 40 books he has published. For all his fame as a photographer, Gibson is omnivorous in his interests and has experimented with other mediums throughout his career, one of them being music. Gibson believes in fact, that there are really no boundaries—or, more precisely, that there are intellectual connections between his image making and his music.

This very special event will feature intimate conversation where guests will indulge in a special afternoon full of stories and insights into the workings of these two masters alongside food, wine and a Q&A session.

The experience will include:

• Interactive and personal experiences with Andy Summers and Ralph Gibson

• Multimedia show featuring photographic and musical sequences

• An intimate lunch with Andy Summers and Ralph Gibson paired with select wines from Bodvár Rosés

• A meet-and-greet with Andy Summers and Ralph Gibson

Andy Summers rose to fame in the late 1970s and early 1980s as the guitarist of the legendary award-winning, multi-million-selling rock band The Police, recognized as the most successful and critically acclaimed group of the era in any genre.

He has since forged a successful and acclaimed solo career with contemporary instrumental music that, like his work with Sting and Stewart Copeland, draws on his love of jazz, world, classical music, and his fascination with creating sonic textures. His post-Police years have produced more than two dozen solo albums, soundtracks, and collaborations, plus hundreds of international concerts, and induction to both the Guitar Player Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, multiple GRAMMY Awards and the Chevalier De L’Ordre Des Arts et Des Lettres by the government of France, and dozens of other accolades.

Summer’s first began photographing in the late 1970’s and has continued to pursue the medium ever since. Summers’s parallel passion for photography has led him to document subjects ranging from rural communities throughout Southeast Asia to timeless noir-style street scenes in cities around the world. His photographs have been exhibited in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Paris and London to name a few, and his books include Throb (1983), the Ralph Gibson collaboration Light Strings: Impressions of the Guitar (2004), the memoir One Train Later (2006) and I’ll be Watching You: INSIDE THE POLICE 1980-83 (2009) 

Ralph Gibson, born in Hollywood, California in 1939. His father was assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock, As a young boy he would visit the set during filming and worked as an extra and acted in bit parts. He was impressed by the power of the camera lens and the intensity of the lights. Ralph Gibson studied photography while in the United States Navy before attending the San Francisco Art Institute and working as an assistant to Dorothea Lange and later, Robert Frank on two of his films, launching his professional career. Having a strong interest in books and book-making, he founded his own publishing company, Lustrum Press out of New York and went on to create his trilogy, The Somnambulist, Deja Vu, and Days at Sea which were instant hits and helped solidify his mark as a key player in 20th century photography.

Gibson is a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France (only given to those who have made significant contribution to the arts) and recently was honored with the Guild Hall Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award in Visual Arts. His work is included in more than 180 museum collections worldwide. Gibson is the Chair of Contemporary Photography at the New York Film Academy (NYFA), where he mentors and works with students and the three NYFA campuses (NYC, LA,& South Beach)

He has worked exclusively with the Leica for almost 50 years. Gibson currently lives in New York.