San Jose photographer Allan Barnes caught the shutterbug by staring out the windows of the Grand River bus in Detroit.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother would take us on shopping trips to Hudson\u2019s, a large Detroit-based department store,\u201d Barnes recalls in his artist\u2019s statement. \u201cI would admire the architecture, which got older and more spectacular as we approached downtown. Seeing that it was beginning to vanish probably inspired me to learn the craft.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barnes, who will be showing his work at 1854 Almaden Road, studio 4, in San Jose during the final weekend of Silicon Valley Open Studios on May 16-17, says his \u201cfirst decent body of work\u201d was a portfolio of architecture. He morphed into a photojournalist while working on his college newspaper, then switched to fashion and portraiture in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, I also started making landscapes again, and for the last 10 years in the Bay Area, I have come full circle back to landscape work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barnes is among more than 370 visual artists participating in Open Studios\u2019 40th\u00a0anniversary event this month, when artists working in a wide variety of media are inviting the public to visit them at more than 100 studios and galleries from South San Francisco to San Jose and Pacifica to Half Moon Bay. The weekend of May 2-3 featured sites along the coast and the Northern Peninsula, while the weekend of May 9-10 highlighted Midpeninsula artists. South Bay artists will be front and center on May 16-17.<\/p>\n