Subject Matter?

"Every good painter paints what he is."

--Jackson Pollock

On Style

As far as my own style: I bought a couple of photographs of tidepools from a Canadian photographer, and framed them. Hung them in the living room. To me, they looked real nice. My wife--who loves the ocean--was not too excited. I said, "What, you don't like them?" She replied, "They're OK, but I prefer your style." My style... My style! The idea excited me, because nobody had ever said I had a "style" before. But it also scared me. I'm not trying to do anything a certain way, I'm just doing. If it's coming out a certain way, if there's some consistency to my work, that's great. But I'm worried that if I think too much about what I'm doing, I'll stop doing it. That's a theme I'd like to expand upon in future posts--the importance of unplugging the brain, of NOT thinking.

[ photograph above: Scotty's Castle, Death Valley, 2003 ]

Another Reason to Drink Wine

"Art is not the bread, but the wine of life."

--John Paul Richter

Finger Painting

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

--Pablo Picasso

Edward Weston on Composition

"To compose a subject well means no more than to see and present it in the strongest manner possible."

--Edward Weston

Analog Darkroom, Digital Darkroom

"Bluntly stated, the analog darkroom is, in comparison to the digital darkroom, primitive. After having spent years working with Photoshop in the production of LensWork, when I now go into the darkroom to make an analog silver print I feel like I'm working with stone knives and bear claws. Dodging, burning, flashing, and bleaching are unbelievably crude when compared to the finesse available in Photoshop for simple tonal adjustments."

--Brooks Jensen

[ photograph above: Redlands, 2002 ]

The Taint of Age

"The taint of age can be very beautiful. The wreckage of man-made objects is something more beautiful than the new. Rust and weathering adds a patina of...well, I call it 'elegant shit' or 'elegant gorp'."

--Brett Weston

Keep Moving

"Very often people looking at my pictures say, 'You must have had to wait a long time to get that cloud just right (or that shadow, or the light).' As a matter of fact, I almost never wait, that is, unless I can see that the thing will be right in a few minutes. But if I must wait an hour for the shadow to move, or the light to change, or the cow to graze in the other direction, then I put up my camera and go on, knowing that I am likely to find three subjects just as good in the same hour."

--Edward Weston

Laughing Eyes

Paulette Weston's touching book "Laughing Eyes: A Book of Letters Between Edward and Cole Weston 1923-1946" reproduces letters between father and son and gives us an intimate glimpse inside photography's first family.

[ photograph above: Big Bear Lake, 2003 ]

The Great Explainer

"Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man."

--Edward Steichen

Saucy Swagger?

"Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie; basically it is an honest medium. So the photographer is much more likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion, instead of with the saucy swagger of self-dubbed 'artists'."

--Edward Weston

Through Another Lens

For the inside scoop on what it was like to be a part of what many consider to be Edward Weston's most creative years, read Charis Wilson's Through Another Lens: My Years With Edward Weston .

[ photograph above: Big Bear Lake, 2003 ]

Sweet Thursday

"I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything."

--John Steinbeck

Don't Go to Art School

"Art cannot be taught; it must be self-inspiration, though the imagination may be fired and the ambition and work directed by the advice and example of others."

--Edward Weston

Personal History, Part V

As mentioned in a previous post, it was in a college art class that I was first introduced to the photography of Edward Weston. I immediately developed an interest in his work, and his life.

While working in the pre-press darkroom, my friend and co-worker Dan Duquette--who knew so much more about fine art photography than I did--would tell me stories he had read or heard about Edward, and his sons Brett and Cole.

In 2002, I had the pleasure to attend a four day photography workshop in Carmel hosted by Cole, Kim, and Gina Weston. You can see some of the images from this workshop in the galleries section of my Web site. Unfortunately, Cole passed away in 2003. But Kim and Gina still offer excellent workshops at Wildcat Hill.

[ photograph above: Kim Weston, 2002 ]

Personal History, Part IV

In early 2002, I added a Nikon film scanner to my digital darkroom. Scanning nearly 30 years of negatives proved to be a daunting task, but a worthwhile one also. If I never took another photograph in my life, I could keep busy just browsing and printing the resulting 20,000+ scanned files. The massive scanning project lasted from about April through November of 2002. All weekend, and for many hours in the evenings after work, the grinding of the film scanner almost drove my family nuts. But then it was over; the images were scanned, organized, and backed up; the original negatives went into the attic; and the film cameras went into a drawer, never to return.

Having my complete photographic history available on my desktop for the first time was amazing. I came to the conclusion that during the "dark" years when I was without darkroom access and only shooting color print film, as a photographer I
became extremely frustrated trying to "take black and white photographs on color film." But once those old negatives were scanned, all of those "lost shots" could be salvaged--the color negatives scanned, converted to black and white positives, and manipulated in the digital darkroom. Every time I ran negatives through the scanner, it was like Christmas! I even found some "classic" images among 15 or so rolls of black and white film I had exposed on Catalina Island in 1984, but had never printed from.

[ photograph above: Obsidian, 1994 ]

Personal History, Part III

In December 1999, my dad bought me an HP C200 digital camera for Christmas. It was a pretty nice camera (1 megapixel) for the time, but it was digital--yuck! I decided to use it to take snaphots of me & my friends rock climbing. It would be easier to put the digital images on the web--do it directly with no scanning, etc.

Within a week I realized that this cheap little digital toy had the potential to change my life. Before long, I was back taking tons of photographs. Using my "digital darkroom," I was taking color pictures, converting them to black and white, and posting them on my web site. I used that cheap little digital camera until May 2003. The most important lesson learned was to not deride the camera but accept it's limitations, and in some cases even use them to my advantage.

In May 2003 I upgraded to a 5 megapixel Nikon 5700. After a few months getting used to it, I'm again able to shoot without thinking, without worrying about controls etc. If there's one word to describe my conversion to digital photography, it's freedom! No darkroom, no film. And my 5 megapixel images are crystal clear, not as clear as if they had been taken with a view camera but better than anything I ever did on 35mm film.

[ photograph above: Dana Point Headlands, 2001 ]

Photography Channeling Nature

"I didn't want to tell the tree or weed what it was. I wanted it to tell me something and through me express its meaning in nature."

--Wynn Bullock

Personal History, Part II

In 1978, we moved again--this time, to Athens, Greece. Not much wildlife. But lots of great artifacts. As in South Africa, in Greece I had no darkroom access. So it was all color print film, commercially developed, and the photos stuck in an album. Pretty frustrating, considering the control I previously had with darkroom access. Also, during this whole South Africa/Greece period, I developed a very bad habit that took almost ten years to break: photography was something to do overseas--while living there, or while on vacation in Switzerland or Belgium, etc. The interesting subjects were overseas. When I came back to the U.S., the cameras got put away--as if there was nothing interesting to photograph--until the next overseas vacation.

In college (back in So Cal), I finally had darkroom access again! No college classes in photography, I just used the "communal" darkroom. Also, through college and grad school, I spent four years working at a large communications company. I worked in the "camera department" there, mostly at nights. It invovled making halftones for ads, photographing book pages onto large sheets of film to use to make plates for the presses, etc. This was frustrating because it was low-quality work; because it wasn't "black and white" but true high contrast "black or white." But shooting 35 mm black and white negatives and then trying my hardest to use the pre-press equipment to make poster-sized enlargements probably had the biggest affect on my personal "style", which seems to be high contrast, abstract, bold composition as opposed to ultra-sharp Ansel Adams Zone System-like photographs, etc.

One of my friends at that job, Dan Duquette--who was a photographer, and a student of photography--taught me a little about the history of photography and some of the important historical figures. Around this same time I really latched on to the work of Edward Weston when introduced to his work in a college art class, and my appreciation for his work continues to this day. After that, the years passed quickly. Working, working, working. Taking photographs now and then, using two Nikon SLRs (an FG and an EM--nothing too fancy). In the back of my mind was always this plan: "some day, when I retire and have the time and money, I'm going to buy a 4 by 5 view camera, build my own darkroom, and finally take the pictures I always wanted to take but never could!"

[ photograph above: Hovercraft, Budapest, Hungary, 1979 ]

It's Not Just About the Picture... Part II

"There will be times when you will be in the field without a camera. And, you will see the most glorious sunset or the most beautiful scene that you have ever witnessed. Don't be bitter because you can't record it. Sit down, drink it in, and enjoy it for what it is!"

--DeGriff

Personal History, Part I

I started taking pictures in grade school--snap shots with an old Brownie, then pretty quickly moving on to using 126 film in an old Instamatic. In Middle School, about 1974, they built a brand new darkroom at our school and started photography classes. I took the first offering, and when the semester was over, was the first on campus to sign up for "Photography 2." Somewhere around that period, my parents bought me an old Yashica rangefinder (what a great camera) and I started shooting 35 mm. Most of my photography then had to do with school assignments ("take a photograph that makes you laugh," etc.). Outside of school, I loved the work of Ansel Adams, and aspired to take breathtaking landscapes some day using a large format camera.

Towards the end of Middle School (in 1976), my dad's job took us to Johannesburg, South Africa. I got an old Soviet "Cosmorex" SLR and a cheap 400 mm lens, and became a nature photographer--which seemed like the logical thing to do, given the opportunity to live in Africa! When not touring game parks on weekends and vacations, I was tromping through the veldt around the house, taking photographs of all kinds of strange looking African birds. My original dream of being Ansel Jr. was replaced by my new dream of being a National Geographic photographer.

[ photograph above: Fallen Tree, Eastern Sierra, 1975 ]

It's Not Just About the Picture... Part I

"Often while traveling with a camera we arrive just as the sun slips over the horizon of a moment, too late to expose film, only time enough to expose our hearts."

--Minor White

Universal Truth

"Art is a way of expression that has to be understood by everyone, everywhere."

--Rufino Tamayo

Art: What's In It for You?

"A lady friend of mine asked me, 'Well, what do you love most?' That's how I started painting money."

--Andy Warhol

It's What You Wan't See

"The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."

--Oscar Wilde

Minor White: Rites and Passages

From time to time I'll be posting recommended photography books.

What better place to start than Minor White's "Rites and Passages". This book contains a good selection of some of his classic images, along with some of his own writing. It's a great introduction to this fabulous photographer and mysticist.

"Rites and Passages" may not be his best book, but it's the best one that's still in print! So unless you've want to spend upwards of $100 for a used copy of "The Eye That Shapes", make sure you add this to your photography library.

[ photograph above: Garrapatta, 2002 ]

Hard Work...Plus Natural Talent!

"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all."

--Michelangelo

Impulse and Intuition

"Sometimes we work so fast that we don't really understand what's going on in front of the camera. We just kind of sense that, 'Oh my God, it's significant!' and photograph impulsively while trying to get the exposure right. Exposure occupies my mind while intuition frames the images.

--Minor White

Art as Truth

"We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda. It is a form of truth."

--John F. Kennedy

[ photograph above: Japan, 1987 ]

Pablo Picasso on Photography

"I have discovered photography. Now I can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn."

-- Pablo Picasso

Why Do I Photograph?

Welcome to My Blog!



A good place to start is probably with this question:

Why Do I Photograph?

A simple question with a very complex answer--an answer I'll probably never know. Maybe it's because I like looking at things differently. I suppose that's a theme in my life. By way of example: I stop on the side of the road, at the "scenic viewpoint" turnout where all the Winnebagos are parked. All the tourists are there, taking slight variations of the same picture of the fabulous vista, the one we've all seen on countless postcards. I'm the guy over in the corner taking a photograph of the flies on the garbage overflowing from the trash can, because the black flies on the white paper gives the image great contrast and an interesting texture...

[ photograph above: Scotty's Castle, Death Valley, 2003 ]