STAFF MEMBER'S PHOTOGRAPHY FEATURED IN EXHIBITION

Somerville's photo of Lizz Wright that appears in the exhibition

Bryn Mawr students had a chance to see Erdman Dining Hall Manager Paul Somerville's photographs of jazz performers when he displayed them at the annual Black History Month Dinner. Now audiences nationwide may have the same opportunity. Organizers of Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, an exhibition that features two of Somerville's photos, plan to send the show to museums and galleries around the country after it closes at the African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP).

Saturday Night/Sunday Morning "explores the cultural implications of two significant days of the week, and offers insight into the lives of Sunday morning worshippers in black churches and Saturday night revelers in juke joints and clubs," says the AAMP Web site. It is curated by the MacArthur-award-winning New York University Professor of Photography and Imaging Deborah Willis, a celebrated art photographer and one of the nation's leading historians of African-American photography.

The exhibition, which features the work of more than 100 photographers, has shown at the prestigious Leica Gallery in New York. Exhibition organizers are now hammering out plans for a national tour of the show, according to AAMP Curator of Collections and Exhibitions Diane Turner.

Saturday Night/Sunday Morning gives viewers a taste of Somerville's work; those who are left wanting more can find it in AAMP's auditorium gallery, where about 30 more of his photographs are on display.

"Paul's photographs that are in Saturday Night/Sunday Morning are so beautiful," says Turner, "that when he delivered them I asked him if he had more photographs of musicians that he'd be willing to contribute to a celebration of the history of African-American music. I hope we can also include his work in an exhibition about Philadelphia jazz that we're planning for late 2006 or early 2007."

Entirely self-taught (though he says he might have picked up a tip or two from his father, who was an amateur photographer), Somerville has previously exhibited his work at the Delaware Museum and the Sedgwick Cultural Center in Philadelphia.

He creates his unusual portraits of jazz artists during their performances, without a tripod and using only available light. The results vividly capture the atmosphere of the performances. He has photographed scores of musicians, from relative unknowns to international jazz superstars like saxophonist Sonny Rollins, the subject of one of the pieces in Saturday Night/Sunday Morning.

"I usually get permission to shoot from a performer's road manager or from the club owner," Somerville says. "When I see somebody play a second time, I sometimes bring my photograph of the last performance and ask them to sign it after the show. I've met a lot of great performers that way."

That, in fact, is more or less how he met Willis, the curator of Saturday Night. At a book signing for her volume The Black Female Body, Somerville took photographs of Willis wielding the pen. "I'm a big fan of her work," Somerville says.

"At the time the photos were developed, I had a show at the Delaware Art Museum," Somerville reports. "I sent her copies of the photos and asked her to see the show. In a few weeks, she asked me to participate in Saturday Night/Sunday Morning at the Leica gallery."

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