Old Town Seal Beach has celebrated the opening of a new gallery. The Dankha Gallery, at 141 Main Street, significantly expands the Old Town arts offerings. The new gallery features large, high definition photographic art and brings the total number of galleries on Main Street to 5.
Strolling the tree shaded sidewalks of Old Town, or walking out on the Seal Beach pier, the second longest wooden pier in the State, and taking in the aromatic ocean air, ranks among the favorites of good things to do in West OC.
There is truly something special about this pier. The solid wood construction gives a feel unlike some local concrete piers which can be as romantic as strolling through a parking lot. The gentle sway of the pier with the waves, the feel of the planking under your feet, the creaking of the pylons, coupled with the blended aroma of the surf and the wood, the sound of the surf crashing under your feet, gives a romantic almost surreal ambience to the quarter mile trek to piers end. Taking the walk during the evening, you are surrounded by lights—the street lights on the pier, the sun setting between the tip of Catalina Island and the Queen Mary, and the skyline of Long Beach. Wait a little later in the evening, and you might encounter a gentle mist or even some bona fide California fog. Add the distant sounds of the harbor buoys, and you are carried away to a movie set somewhere in New England, and, you can write your own script!
Now, returning to Main Street, walking along the left side, you will find some large, beautiful, and extraordinary images of the scene you just left behind. That would be the windows of the Dankha Gallery.
The opening of the Dankha Gallery is the realization of “a life long dream” for John Dankha, whose mission “is to bring high quality photography art into town {Seal Beach}”. John’s goal is to create an image which “invokes some kind of an emotion in you…it brings you to your first love, or childhood, moments you enjoyed, some kind of feelings, even if it’s sad, that’s still an emotion, but I don’t go after the sad emotions…I don’t want the emotion of anger or disgust…it’s more about solitude, it’s more about serenity, it’s more about enjoying the inherent beauty that we have…the US is blessed with this beauty that’s everywhere you go…you see this incredible beauty around you.”
John’s work blends technological expertise with the artist’s eye. In this digital age, all his images are first shot on high resolution 4 inch by 5 inch sheet film. This film is about 20 times larger than traditional 35 millimeter film. He uses the best lenses available and with a slow shutter speed, captures the finest detail. The images are than scanned at a resolution of 4,000 DPI, before printing on either canvas or Fuji’s Crystal Archive Paper.
The level of detail in this process is equivalent to using a digital camera with 600 mega pixels. Thus, the resolution in his work is about 100 times higher than a typical digital photo. By way of contrast, the difference between a standard TV and high definition TV is about 2.5 times more resolution.
Although he transfers his original film images into the digital domain, he does not use digital manipulation to alter the natural image. The result of this process can be seen with stunning beauty and clarity in the Dankha Gallery.
The size of John’s work varies from small to very large. Since the under lying images are of such high quality, and the scanning/printing process is done at very high resolution, he is able to create mural sized images with enhanced detail and undiminished clarity. John’s gallery is a welcomed addition to the Seal Beach arts scene.
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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