June 11, 2012

The View From Here - June 2012

trees
San Francisco and the Golden Gate from the Marin Headlands. 1994.
Betterlight Scanning Back.

THE VIEW FROM HERE
by Stephen Johnson

A Summer of Photography, Educaion, Travel and Tasks

I'm thinking through the summer ahead, of the places I'll be going and the tasks where progress can be made.The travels often come from my speaking engagements, the tasks from what I now may feel empowered to do, and some are long overdue.

The tasks can seem endless, and however carefully I plan, they are rarely caught up nor central to my photographic motivations or inspirations. Many are business related, some are purely photographic in this digital age, but just tasks. Some critical. The business of the arts, is fundamentally different than making art.

Trips

I almost feel as though I've been on the road already with many recent visits to the Golden Gate, but it is only 15 miles from my studio. Showing people around and the 75th Anniversary of the Bridge were the supposed reasons, but an impulse to just walk across the Golden Gate Bridge one evening was acted upon and really enjoyed. It was a real reminder of how we take things nearby for granted, and shouldn't.

The first trip comes next week as I head off to Rochester for a June 14th. lecture at the George Eastman House International Photography Museum. I must say, I'm deeply honored to be invited to lecture there. I'm speaking on my national parks project, With a New Eye, and looking forward to describing my journey and the remarkable results I was able to hold. Image City Gallery will also host a reception for me on the evening of June 13. If you're in the area, please come see us.

Next, onto the northeast where I'll be teaching for two weeks at the Maine Media Workshops, a field workshop Vision & Craft: Perfecting the Photograph June 18-22, 2012, and the Printing Photographic Beauty course running June 24-30, 2012. I've been teaching in Maine for a few weeks each summer for over a decade now. It is a part of my summer experience that I have come to treasure. The landscape shift, the weather, the community of the Maine Media Workshops, all part of a great experience.

In August I'll be off to Michigan to speak at the Southwestern Michigan Council of Camera Clubs photo conference and explore more of the Lake Michigan shoreline and dunes.

postpile

White Mountains. 2011.

Later in August we'll be going back to the eastern Sierra for a 7 day trek along its dramatic escarpment and into the White Mountains with their ancient Bristlecone pines. This is one of my favorite areas of California and allows me to link the high country of Yosemite to Mono Lake and the Owens Valley. The area is deeply embedded in my early years of landscape photography and often feels like a sojourn home.

High and Eastern
A High Sierra, Owens Valley, and White Mountains Photography Workshop
August 19-25, 2012

 

Projects

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On photographic tasks, I am readying a big archive project with Blu-ray Gold disks to back-up all of my hard drive archives onto what I now believe to be a stable media. So far, the project is starting off well with both 25gb and 50gb double layer disks.

The latest push to move forward on the project is the availability of gold disks which are just now coming onto the market. I consider the gold reflective layer to be one of the critical factors in building a reasonably stable archive of disks on an additional technology to hard drives, without their mechanical risks and fragile directory structure.

As I have mentioned earlier, I will keep updating the newsletter as I gain experience and confidence in the project postpile

Alabama Hills. 2011

Printing and the Evolution of Vision and Skill

Its funny, and fascinating, the way our vision of the possible just keeps expanding. It is partially due to this high technology medium that the recording and rendering of light has evolved into, but it is also a measure, I hope, of continued growth in aesthetics and at least in an individual maturing of vision and craft.

I'll be 57 this year, and for many that may seem young, for others nearly ancient, but having worked in the arts for more than 40 years, you might think I would know exactly what I want to do to and how to do it. It really hasn't worked that way for me. My aspirations keep growing, as do my skills, I still learn so much in the process of asking more and more of my work.

This has certainly been influenced by the opportunities I've had to push the technology forward. I've been consulting on the development of printers, printer technology, software development and printing papers for almost 20 years. That has given me a chance to tackle and help solve many of the very issues that stood in my way, and tackle new ones as they were revealed or developed with the evolving technologies.

I have had confidence in my printing and my judgment as to what a print can be for a very long time. But it is also true that my prints are getting better. I am making the best prints of my life, and I am very proud of them.

That is not to say that my relentless pursuit of perfection has been achieved, but it is quite a profound feeling of satisfaction to be able to make prints that rise so high on my level of satisfaction. It makes me anxious to see the work 20 years from now, as I assume this process will only continue.

There are still some issues I want to address and the real world so beautifully rich...

Tidbits

A few things I would like you to keep in mind...

Virtual Education: Our Virtual Consulting and Mentoring Program is working well. Readers of this Newsletter can still get a discount by mentioning this reference when you enroll.

Our One on One Program links you up with Steve at his bay area studio, or when he is on the road near you. Keep an eye on when Steve will be near your town.

Catch Steve Live: Steve will be speaking here and there around the country over the next few months, June in NY, late June in Maine, early August in MI.

Some other opportuniities to see Steve follow the Viewpoint Gallery invitation below.

viewpoint

 

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