The View From Here - January 2011

Glacial Dome, Iceland. 2009

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Exquisite Earth : A Photographic Exhibition Constructed and Open

The show is up, the Opening a good success, a few weeks have gone by and I continue to be pleased as I walk the hall of the Exquisite Earth installation. It might be that it doesn't get any better than that.

As we now try to document the Exquisite Earth show, edit video of the opening, and continue efforts to let people know it is here, it now seems like a completely different entity than when it was in creation. And it is. This Exhibition is now a business as well as an artistic statement. Now the value of having created this show is measured by exposure, income and still most importantly by viewers being moved. And of course how it drives me forward.

These photographs are now fixed renditions of my experience. The distance from the creation of the prints is now sufficient to see the photographs as separate from their making. Now they are jewels of the earth and process, still mostly unbelievable, even to me, even with my eye behind the camera for each exposure. The detail, real color, the re-creation of my visual experience, these are the qualities that make my heart warm and give me the satisfaction of creation.

The moments remain magic and have moved back into the realm of feeling like I couldn't have had anything to do with this work, it is beyond my capabilities of seeing or creation. A little distance and the work moves beyond me, quickly. It sounds full of ego or pride to say it's too good to be from my hand, but mine are such imperfect hands. I think it is really that curious mixture of asking much of ourselves, trying so hard to reach high, and even when the reach is far less than perfect, it can be rewarding to a degree that pushes us forward, into more work, harder work, more risk, more heart, more soul poured into the art. Satisfaction, seduction and a big kick in the butt to do more work.

Maybe this is how we keep working. Driving ourselves to follow our creative compulsions and asking more than is reasonable. Reaching part of that distance feels great, as we forget just how hard it was and we are amazed that we could have done it at all, feeling like it would be impossible to ever match the same level, then driving yourself to prove it again, at least to yourself.

I continue to be humbled by what I've been privileged to see as I've wandered this planet and now put on these walls. It feels like a touch of wonder.

A Virtual Walk down the Gallery. QuickTime pano of Exquisite Earth Installation East Wall (photos are digitally tipped-in).

A Virtual Walk down the Gallery. QuickTime pano of Exquisite Earth Installation West Wall (photos are digitally tipped-in).

Of course one of the fundamental and ongoing issues is how do we get people to see the work? My studio and gallery may be in an Art Center, and near one of the great cities of the world, San Francisco, but street traffic is low, and visitation has to be intentional. Setting up shop in a more commercial urban or tourist center is not a goal for me.

We have to reach out for the work to be seen. Letting people know it is here via the internet, scheduling open gallery days and evenings when we can be here beyond normal work hours, and a show closing event as we ready the next exhibition may all be worth doing.

Extended Gallery Hours:

Thursday February 3, 2011 7-10pm
Saturday February 5, 2011 12-5pm

Acknowledgments

A special thanks to my assistants Elizabeth Bredall and Emma Simmons for their help with the exhibit. And to my friends and former students Darin Steinberg and Carl Schwab.

Video of Opening December 10, 2010 by Tom Adams.

A Video Record

I asked my friend videographer Tom Adams to make a video of the exhibition opening, including the 15 minute talk, the conversations, the questions and the repartee. Linked above is our first take on an edit of the the evening's events, concentrating here mostly on excerpts from my talk, later to come an expanded version including discussions of the photographs and other conversations.

Building An Exhibit and an Experience by Emma Simmons

Many or most of us have been to art exhibits.  Some of us have had our own work as a part of an exhibit, but for me, it wasn't until I was working side by side with Steve for his Exquisite Earth exhibit where I realized all of the details and intricacies that go into showing your own work.  With limited time and an abundance of absolutely stunning images that fit the theme Exquisite Earth, each day leading up to the exhibit had its own challenge. 

Decisions such as which pen or pencil to use to sign the prints, the placement and spacing between hanging the photographs, to which images would actually make it into the exhibit, were made in the days leading up to the opening. Helping Steve with this exhibit from the initial ideas to critiquing the show, I felt rewarded in his trust for the opinion of us helping with his show.  The hallway was lined with possible candidates to be hung on the wall and the question kept rolling through my mind "how do you show one piece and not the other?" 

It wasn't until we had everything printed and we were rearranging the photographs that it all worked out like a puzzle, everything perfectly fitting.  Some images worked exceptionally well with another image hung directly above or beside it, others were complimented on their own from places that still continue to amaze me, no matter how many times i have looked at the image on screen, by proofs or physically hanging on Steve's gallery wall, truly an Exquisite Earth.

 

 

A few quotes from the evening:

“Every idea you have is a blind spot that keeps you from seeing”  Bill Atkinson

"I do appreciate your discussions about what reality is. It's going to make me re-think certain things about shooting" -visitor

"you did ok Dad"  Matt Johnson

The View From Here - February 2011

Bixbee Bridge. Big Sur. 2011.

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Photography and Refuge

I photograph seeking experience and comprehension. My instinct to explore coupled with desire to comprehend the planet as best I can keeps engaging me in this earth around me.

I seek solace in the natural world––under stars and watching the rhythm of the coming and going of the sun and night. In that exploration my heart is most at home, even more than home itself. The wander can put logistics, even safety on edge, but the engagement is riveting.

Out along the Big Sur coast just yesterday, I realized once again that for me, a contentment rests in the moving and seeing, taking in the world, letting it process through my heart and work toward holding photographic impressions. It is what I enjoy the most about photography, the being there.

For all of my love of the finished print, and all of the energy I pour into their making, it is still the experience out in the world that is unquestionably primary, vital, and the reason for all of this fascination with image making.

Working in the office, even on photographic tasks, much less business, web page or promotion, all has to be sustained by the initial engagement with heart and eyes. That is not easy to do, as the making of the photographs rarely pays as well as the organized results, skills built and process communicated.

But as my mind wanders through the years, streaming the motivations and challenges of this now 35 year career in photography, it has always been the making of the image that was primary. Nothing else even comes close.

That process of exploring form, design, light and color––the seduction of the seeing design and order becomes an emotional refuge, a precious place of beauty and perhaps even purity that rests in the interplay of heart and art.

Gulls and Surf. Big Sur. 2011.

Creek and Sand. Big Sur. 2011.

Big Sur

It's hard to talk about a place I know so little of, but since that's where I'm at, and not where I intend to be, I thought it might be worth vamping on a bit.

It was a beautiful sunny day, a kind of day we delight in being out and about if even only for the few hours spent. Sometimes in that sunshine is also the kind of day where the light is the most normal of all. The old adage comes to mind about the more uncomfortable the photographer is, the more likely the light is compelling. I was very comfortable in yesterday's afternoon sunshine, the cliffs and sea were clearly beautiful. The photographs made in such circumstances often emphasize design, with the quality of ordinary light playing less of a role.

It is peculiar though, how often the warm sun on my skin is the same condition where I make the most ordinary photographs. Sometimes it seems searing heat, fog or storms and bitter cold make for stronger images. That is not unexpected, as the more familiar and comforting sunshine is exactly the conditions under which we are most compelled to be outdoors, thus almost by definition the most ordinary and common views.

Fog Bank, Pacifica, CA. 2011.

It is often in those somewhat marginal conditions that the light is strange, wondrous, sometimes even magnificent, certainly unusual and therefore frequently engaging. It often tunes me back to the amazing gift we carry of our eyes and heart interacting with this precious earth.

The View From Here - March 2011

American Falls, Niagara Falls NY. 2011.

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Lectures, Truth and the Eastman House Photography Wonderland

I seem to frequently be writing as I am returning from trips. This time some Canon-sponsored lectures at the University of Buffalo, the Niagara Frontier Regional Camera Club's 50th Convention (NFRCC), and an amazing long-overdue visit to Niagara Falls and the George Eastman House in Rochester.

I have never been to this part of the country, and was not looking forward to possible storms that might complicate my trip. But no complications arose, and I was transported into a land of snow and ice, very unlike my home in California but much more like our idea of winter.

I was looking forward to seeing Niagara Falls, and anticipated a wonder in the ice and snow surrounding them. I was not let down. The mist from the falls iced the trees, built-up snow dunes below the falls and blanketed most everything in sight. The white of the snow and churning foam of the falling water seemed whiter still with the Niagara River's green water flowing through it. For all of the monocolor associated with winter, the color that comes through can be quite remarkable.

Steve Showing Prints in his Printing Class at the University at Buffalo. 2011.
photo by Domenic J. Licata, University at Buffalo.

Hands-on
It was a pleasure to spend some time with the faculty and students at the University at Buffalo. Touring the Art Department with its sculpture lab, printmaking studios and foundry, pulled me back into the tactile world of making art with hands and hard work. Although photography was always different, the darkroom connected you back with the raw materials from which the magic came. It was fundamentally different than working on a computer and sending files to a printer. It's peculiar that now, the most tactile operations of the photographic processes have more to do with presentation than fabrication, matting and framing.

At the heart of our work as photographers is still the fundamental interaction with a world of light, the cold, the sweat, the heat and sun, the weight of equipment and protection from rain and wind. All of those normal natural phenomena that moving about the world encounters, are all part of making images. That has always been the why for most of us, out there experiencing the real world, with its challenges and glories. But there was always also something else fundamental about the laborious and careful chemical aromatic experience of endless hours standing under safelights and in total darkness. There was an immersion in the materials. Probably to the detriment of our health, but it was an immersion. I don't mean to wax romantic about it, I would never trade away the tools and precision of how I am now able to work, but there is a change.

It is quite understandable why so many photographers in this digital age work their materials with hand coloring, montage, mixed-media and multiple processes in conjunction with their inkjet prints. The hard working of idea into something touched, inevitably singular, and hand made is substantial.

Tree and Rapids, Niagara River. Whirlpool State Park. NY 2011.

The Camera Club Convention
I was greeted warmly and felt much appreciated at the Niagara Falls NFRCC Convention. It was wonderful to see so many lovers of photography in a single place. Their print competition had many very fine photographs. I gave a lecture on my National Parks project With a New Eye and on 12 Steps to Improve Your Digital Photography.

In a few of my remarks, it seemed I might also have been saying some uncomfortable words. In talking about my work on the national parks, and my earlier stylistic evolution, I couldn't help but return to old themes of my frustration with the dark, saturated, contrasty world I see in so much color photography. I asked the audience if that's the world they saw, if they had ever encountered a black shadow, which I equated to a light-sucking black hole? Is the real world, in all its magnificence, nuance and beauty, really in need of the "enhancement" we see attempted in most digital landscape photography?

Although I heard appreciation for my talk,  phrases like "you made me think about things I've never thought of before," I also heard later  that some were vocally disagreeing with my views during my talk. All of this is for the good. Sometimes I feel like part of my mission in life is to stir up the pot, and ask questions that prompt debate and inquiry.

An Old Topic Revisited
For some reason the last few days have also stirred up some discussions of photographic truth, which also gave rise to some new ways of articulating my views.

Photographs are often said to be lies, so why worry about cloning real things in or out of a digital file. All photos lie anyway, supposedly. I strongly disagree with this contention, and will not go into it again deeply here as I've discussed it elsewhere. But something did come up this week that crystallized the ideas even more to me.

What we mean by truth after all, is as real in a photograph, as it is with the most reliable witness in their words in describing an event. The testimony is limited by the extent of the story told, as is the view of the photograph. Nothing has ever been a complete truth, but always limited to the subject at hand at best. It is from a particular point of view, like a person, or a lens. It is interpreted and understood by the norms of the time, as is a story and a photograph. What truth do we really have that is any truer than a photograph? Perhaps only our own experience and memory, our own truth.

A photograph is based on a physical phenomena, light through a lens, therefore I believe it is more of a truth than the best of what we can tell. That doesn't mean, as Ansel Adams once said that, "photographs don't lie, photographers do," that an image can't be photographed with intent to deceive, but trashing the veracity of a medium we cherish, partially because of its ability to be selective witness, is unwarranted.

This conversation deepened with the Eastman House Process Historian and well-known enthusiast for historical processes Mark Osterman as he was graciously showing us around their Conservation Lab. Mark pointed out that a photograph was also seen with certain processes yielding a particular look which contributed to the understanding of the time, as well the cultural prejudices of the days, so whatever truth it may contain would be relative to those considerations as well. No argument.

By the  way, Mark runs classes in historical processes. Check them out here.

Abraham Lincoln. late 1850s Alexander Hessler.

Lincoln Up Close
Mark also showed us a direct positive glass plate of a very well-known portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Hessler which he graciously allowed us to inspect with a loupe. Peering into the magnified view of this second generation glass plate was one of the truly amazing photo history moments of my life. The reality of the man portrayed became more alive than any other historical photographic experience I can remember. Through that photographic view, my sense of Lincoln as a real live human being was dramatically deepened.

Wiki link

Frozen Mist on Trees. Niagara Falls. 2011.

The George Eastman House
I've always wanted to visit the George Eastman House, so I extended my trip to pay a visit to Rochester, to see the museum and my old and dear friend from Kodak of yesteryear, photographer Pete Sucy. Pete helped sketch out and define digital photography as we know it in its early days. The George Eastman House is just that, the home of Kodak founder George Eastman, built with his Kodak fortune, some called it the "house that Brownie built" and is now a world renowned photography museum.

Photographer and Digital Visionary Pete Sucy Kindly Holding my Gray Cap. Niagara Falls. 2011.

I wasn't fully prepared for the treat I was about to encounter as Technology Curator Todd Gustavson gave us a backroom tour of the museum photography technology collection (check out his book, Camera: A History of Photography from Daguerrotype to Digital). I got to see so much neat stuff in a few hours that I am still coming down from the nerdy photo high I was floating on as we moved through the collection.

We saw the first of the Kodak cameras complete with original shipping/return for processing box, a Daguerreotype camera signed by Daguerre himself with original shipping documents, every imaginable camera design and concept, survey cameras from the early USGS, a stereo 4x5 Graphic View camera, the Lunar Orbiter camera with built-in darkroom and television scanner for film development and transmission from space, and gadgets galore. It is a photo nirvana place for the kid in me that fell in love with photography in my teens.

left top:Lunar Orbiter Camera. NASA. 1966.
right top: Steve with a 4x5 Stereo Graphflex view camera. 1902.
left bottom: 5 Cent 3D Movie/Still Player featuring the National Parks. circa 1930s.
right bottom: The Octopus. 1980s All in one Clock Radio Camera.
all from the George Eastman House Collection. 2011.

Rochester
To many of us, Rochester New York was once an icon of photography and Eastman Kodak. As a series of decisions and missed opportunities left Kodak less central to present day photography, that iconic association waned.

To those of us without any real knowledge about the town, it may have made us think Rochester is a city in deep decay. Of course, like any other impression without deep information, this is not a fair view. Although the city has suffered mightily from Kodak's decline, it is still a huge and vital community. However, with so much industry now idled, there is also ample visual evidence of an industrial heyday now passed.

But industries remain, universities are present, and what appears to be an active and involved arts, music and creative community continues on.

High Falls, Genesse River. Rochester. NY 2011.

Fire Escape. High Falls. Rochester. NY 2011.

I've met so many people in the last few days that faces are a bit of a blur, but stories, voices and so much goodwill fills my mind. I was surrounded all weekend with a deep love of photography. I think I'll plan on going back.

The View From Here - April 2011

Antarctica 2009.

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Digital Archives and Archiving the Real World

Two thoughts came to mind this month, as they were both issues which I had to sort through, some missing files and sunlit springtime images riding the edge of black and life.

A Missing Archive

As I was curating my exhibition Exquisite Earth last fall, I ran into a wall on a photograph I wanted to use for the exhibition, the full res edited version and the RAW file was missing. As I looked further, it became clear that my entire Antarctica trip from 2009 was missing. Few hard drive files, no DVDs, no index, other than some jpeg excerpts, no evidence that the archive ever existed.

For years my normal offload and back-up process was to offload to two hard drives on initial downloading of my photographs from the camera memory card, re-naming the files and imposing my normal metadata simultaneously. On return home one of those drives is then back-up to two gold DVDs.

In this instance, this procedure seems to have gone awry.

It soon became clear to me what must have happened. When I went to mount one of my terabyte hard drives, it wouldn't mount, nor could Apple's Disk Repair Utility fix the drive and mount it. As it happened, it was a drive I had carried with me on the Antarctica trip which I had also been using for Apple's Time Machine back-ups. The 500gb portable drive I had used simultaneously for offloading the photographs in the field had long since been cleared and overwritten with new data.  It didn't make sense to me that the only copy could possibly be the files that must be on that now problematic Time Machine drive.

As I investigated the matter, it did seem that some people were reporting errors with Time Machine leading to directories getting corrupted and drives not mounting. I knew at the time that putting precious data and back-ups on the same drive was problematic, but as they were my secondary back up, I didn't worry too much about it.

On my return from Antarctica, with catching up from weeks away, inattention to detail of file management and archiving led me to end up with only one copy, on what now seemed to be a corrupted drive. I was devastated, but had to move on and print the show, keeping faith in the back of my mind that the data was there, and I would manage to get it off. It wasn't until March that I had a window of time to try a disk recover.

A good friend recommended Alsoft's Disk Warrior as the software to try for disk recovery, and as I had used it successfully in the past, I ordered an update.  Disk Warrior rebuilt the directory and the files suddenly appeared in a temporary "preview" directory that I could mount and copy from, but could not repair as the drive was now also reporting a hardware error, which may have been the problem all along.

I now have two duplicate hard drives of the trip, that are indexed with a little disk indexing utilitiy I've been using for years, Disk Tracker, and I will start writing the Blu-ray disks tomorrow. Even at the standard 25 gigabytes, it will take 9 disks for the 2009 Antarctica trip. The sheer volume of data it is now possible to produce is one of the challenges facing us. It can contribute to what happened to me here, where the task of good backup simply requires a lot of time and effort.

San Joaquin River. 2011.

Bright Sun, Deep Shadows, Light Everywhere

The rain of the last few months have swelled the rivers here. The sun is out and California seems draped in spring. I am itching to wander this month, and believe I will. Meanwhile, I use every chance I get knocking around to see what's going on with the water and life bursting out.

In this abundance of light and life, the photographs can often seem contrasty, harsh and dead of that very life. I work hard on the RAW processing files and with careful edits in Photoshop to preserve the luminously and delicacy I see. It is not easy to do or to translate onto paper.

San Joaquin River. 2011.

I remember working so hard to get my beginning black and white students to print so that blacks were possible in their silver prints. Adequate exposure under the enlarger, long development time in the paper developer and appropriate contrast of paper–were all ingredients to a rich print result.

This very chasing of black has imposed a world view pervasive in photography.  And that very blackness and darkness at the bottom end of the tonal scale is exactly what I try to very carefully watch for in processing these light-filled spring flood photographs of the San Joaquin River.

It is also a challenging area as there were no blacks present, but there were very dark values. We tend to truncate those into blacks in most photography, and in these cases it is very easy for anything less than a black at the bottom end to make the image look flat.

San Joaquin River. 2011.

A combination of very restrained contrast in the RAW processor, being careful to keep detail in the shadows by not imposing black, using the shadow Fill slider, the curve editor, and then in Photoshop carefully editing the curve again to keep shadows open and contrast sill not noticeably flat and dull. It is a difficult edge to ride. An additional tool now in our palette of options is the HDR Toning Editor in Photoshop CS5 Adjustments menu. Careful use of HDR Toning was explained in our September 2010 Newsletter Tutorial.

Of course this all fits in nicely with my general contention that most photographs unduly truncate the delicate nuance of the real world into over-simplified exaggerations that result in contrasty saturated hyperbole. And now that you know what I really think.... It is also riding an edge where it is not at all clear what do, even with plently of attitiude and a subtle aganda. It is new tonal territory, and every image has its own potential and challenges, which I will somtimes rise to, often struggle with, and occasionally move on as I won't know what to do. Sometimes it just needs to be black and white.

The View From Here - May 2011

Dad. 1996.

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Alive in a Photograph: Warren Johnson 1929-2011

My Dad died this week. He was 82. I didn't know him well, and so much of how he will live on for me is in the few photographs I have.

Photographs are remarkable artifacts of what once was, sometimes implying more, sometimes a palette for our own memories to gather, perhaps unintentionally even fictionalize.

This week, as I gather photographs for a memorial service for my Dad, they offer their own kind of comfort, they were, after all, all moments where we were together, he was looking right at me, with whatever thoughts may have been present in his mind.

He was a curious man, loved a good story, had a hearty laugh, found much absurdity in life, and saw evidence of mysteries beyond our ability to sense or prove.

Shortly after the news, I thought I was working through an acceptance of his death. As I found more photographs, many of which I had forgotten, my mood changed into a fairly heavy burden of loss. It seemed true that the photographs carried a weight of record, and now jogged memories that brought a greater truth home, that there were more precious times than were in the forefront of my mind, that the loss is even greater, that the reality of the photographs themselves had perhaps too much power to take in.

I know how to print, there is little labor beyond finding the files, many of which were made fairly early on in the digital age before I had many of my file protocol and filing procedures worked out. The effort is in standing up to the emotional loss, pressing on through the discoveries so that some precious images can be shared.

 

Trentepohlia, Fitzgerald Reserve. 2011.

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Going Out

A short but somewhat determined trip to our local Fitzgerald Marine Reserve brought back a photograph of the orange moss I've been fascinated by for years. On workshops, the subject is too demanding for me as an instructor to spend the time on, too much attention to depth of field, subtle waves of composition and backlight exposure issues.

At least on this one particular afternoon, even while hoping for a new friend to join me, I took a little time and moved my fascination for the subject a little closer to a satisfying photograph. This strange life form is a subject that will continue to draw me in I'm sure.

The Trentepohlia is a fascinating life form. It is essentially a tree clinging algae, drawing nourishment from the air and sea. It has no leaves as a moss would, but rather microscopic filaments heavy with carotenoid pigments, masking the green of the chlorophyll. According to Wikipedia, "Carotenoids in general absorb blue light. They serve two key roles in plants and algae: they absorb light energy for use in photosynthesis, and they protect chlorophyll from photo damage." In fact, the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park is ringed in orange by carotenoid molecules in algae, and similar forms seem to protect our eyes from ultraviolet radiation damage.*

*source: Wikipedia

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Northern California Events

Al Weber. Mission San Antonio. 2011

Al Weber Aerial Photographs
June 4, 2011 through July 30, 2011
Lecture and Panel Saturday, June 4, 2pm-3:30pm (Steve is on the panel)
Opening Reception Saturday, June 4, 4pm-6pm

Center for Photographic Art
Sunset Cultural Center. San Carlos and 9th Streets Carmel, CA, 93921.

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STUFF

Art and Fear by Ted Orland and David Bayles now available as an eBook through Apple iTunes, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Free Canon film camera equipment

Bay Area Matting and Framing Business: Studio 4316 Discount Framing

Tower and Cross. Mission San Antonio, CA. 2011.

Al Weber's Mission San Antonio Workshop

A community of photographers, coming together for a few days of looking, questions, exploring and camaraderie, time with old friends, steeped in the traditions of fine art landscape photography while getting a kick in the butt to loosen up and try new stuff. A good three days.

I had never been to this part of California before, nearby, but never this mission, this valley, nor this connection to the coast. The California missions are about the oldest manmade stuff around in California, largely rebuilt, but still occupying some special ground in history. They are both antiquity and old story, old for here, but also very much of European army/religion overtaking native peoples and cultures.

Mission San Antonio. 2011

But the rural nature of this place, the long arched corridors, the adobe, the sense of history and stories do draw one in.  Of course we have mission cliche's: a kitschy gift shop and easy sense of visual been there/done that. But there is more here, particularly in the context of three days spent wandering, looking, and immersed in photography.

Mission San Antonio. 2011

It was also Easter, the Mission is still an active church, so ceremonies and visitation by parishioners and the public were part of the weekend. A fire was built in front of the Mission, which served as a gathering point and beginning for the evening ceremonies.

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Mission San Antonio. 2011

Kazu Okitumi. Mission San Antonio. 2011

A few of us spent one late evening around the campfire. It turns out that photographer Victor Landweber is also quite a good guitarist and has a wonderful Leon Redbone kinda of voice and style. I had a great time playing with him, doing of few of my own tunes, hanging out with Ted Orland, David Bayles and a few other new friends.

Around the Campfire. David Bayles and Steve Johnson. Mission San Antonio. 2011. Ted Orland.

On coming home, I was tempted onto the Nacimiento-Fergusson road toward Big Sur, even with some doubts as to whether a known road closure on Highway One would leave me blocked from going north and force a very long southward loop. The oaks and hills were beautiful.

As the road rose over the coastal mountains, I drove into mist, then outright clouds of fog. The bucolic road became mysterious, the vistas blind, everything wet. It was a good drive. After 26 winding miles, when I got down to Highway One, the road north to home was open, it was closed a few miles to the south.

The View From Here - June 2011

Dusk, Mono Lake, 1979.

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Mono Lake, Art and Conservation

In the mid-1970s I visited Mono Lake for the first time and found it to be a deeply beautiful and strange place. Over the years it was becoming clear the lake was falling. Eventually I learned about water diversions of its feeder streams to Los Angeles 350 miles to the south.

In 1979 I decided to organize a big photographic exhibition to draw attention to the unique beauty of the place. My friends and photographic mentor Al Weber and Don Worth helped curate the show, with Ansel Adams and Brett Weston contributing prints. Letters of support from Ansel, non-profit sponsorship by David Brower and Friends of the Earth helped get the project underway.

At Mono Lake Exhibition at the California Academy of Sciences Installation. San Francisco, CA 1983.

The exhibition At Mono Lake gathered work from over a hundred years of photography and nearly 50 photographers, toured the country from 1980 to 1983, was seen by over 4 million people and now resides in a permanent gallery at the Mono Basin National Scenic Area Visitor's Center in Lee Vining. A catalog drawn from the show was published in 1983 including 63 photographs from the exhibit.

At Mono Lake Exhibition Catalog. Cover photograph by Clinton Smith. 1983.

A public relations campaign and lawsuit was waged against the water diversions  and was successful in mandating a minimum lake level being restored before water diversion could resume.

An Aging Exhibition and New Opportunities
The At Mono Lake exhibition is now 30 years old and needs some tender loving care. It also needs some modernization with some electronic interpretation and a exhibition catalog that represents all of the work in the show.

I have devoted some time to this project this last month or so, recreating the book in InDesign with the hope of publishing a full electronic version, illustrating the Exhibition Inventory page on the website, designing some new graphics for the Visitor's Center and some new posters that might serve as fundraiser's for the short and long-term maintenance of the show.

The Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association is the current non-profit managing affairs relating the Mono Lake Visitors Center and therefore will likely be the conduit for the work we are now doing.

Pastel Sunrise. Mono Lake 1981.

A Photographic Style
My Mono Lake work is where my own photographic style emerged and matured into an aesthetic that deeply appreciates the nature of light-filled color and real world experience of the human perceived color of a place.

The whole At Mono Lake experience so influenced my thinking, artwork, and sense of the possible that it became the subject of my graduate thesis and gave me real confidence to go on to my next big photographic project on my homeland of the Great Central Valley which I did with my friend Robert Dawson from 1982-1986.

Next Mono Lake Class
One of my favorite locations to do a field workshop is at Mono Lake. The stark and beautiful scenery of this legendary lake is unlike any other landscape in the world and I enjoy seeing the work produced from the four days we spend photographing and discussing technical and aesthetic considerations.

Our 2011 Mono Lake Workshop is October 8-11, 2011. Perhaps you can join us.

Panum Crater, Mono Lake. Timothy O'Sullivan. 1868.

A Tribute to Al Weber: A Panel at the Center for Photographic Art, Carmel

Much of this convergence of attention to the decades-old Mono Lake project came about as I was preparing for a talk about my good friend and co-curator of At Mono Lake, Al Weber, at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel last Saturday.

I first met Al in October of 1975 on one of his and Ralph Putzker's Mono Lake Eastern Sierra workshops run through the University of California Santa Cruz Extension. He and Ralph both became good friends and mentors to me, helping my career and photography in countless ways, not the least of which was the encouragement that my photographic work was of value.

Video of Steve's Talk at Al Weber Tribute. Click to open, and video may take awhile to load.

It was an honor to speak at Al's opening of his Aerial Photographs show at CPA. It was also wonderful to see so many old friends including some of the contributing photographers to At Mono Lake, Ted Orland, Richard Garrod, Marion Patterson and others.

At Mono Lake Exhibition Poster. Photograph by Brett Weston, 1961. Poster 1980.

 

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STUFF

At the Opening Reception for Al Weber's show, I saw many old friends and met some interesting new friends as well. Wynn Bullock's daughter Barbara Bullock was there and we talked about her posing for her Dad, and about her mother Edna whom I was very fond of. She mentioned that there was now a section on her father Wynn's website devoted to her mother's work.

Steve Johnson and Marsh Pitman. 2011. Michelle Maddox.

My old friend environmentalist Marsh Pitman came by the opening. I met Marsh in 1968 working against the election of Richard Nixon, and then later as co-chairs of the McGovern campaign where I grew up in central California. I was 15 and running the campaign, Marsh served as the adult in the room that let my management of the campaign go forward.

I made the acquaintance of another photographer, Michelle Maddox, who made an impression on me in talking with her, but even more of an impression when I looked at her webpage later. Michelle made a nice photograph of Marsh Pitman and me together.

I also ran into William Giles who I hadn't seen in 20 years or more and thought it would be nice to remind people of his very substantial work. Take a look a his website.

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And now for something completely different, below is my pause to look up at the marquis of the newly restored Fox Theater in Oakland as we went in to see the Buffalo Springfield reunited after 40 years. Below is just two iPhone snapshots stitched on site in AutoStitch and emailed to a few friends before the show began. I loved the light, the curvature, the magic of rock and roll. It was a great show.

Fox Theater Marquis. Buffalo Springfield. 2011.

The View From Here - July 2011

Class Photo, Vision and Craft. Maine 2011.

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Two Weeks at the Maine Media Workshops

As I flew off to my annual sojourn to Maine, I was lost in thought with the challenges of keeping things moving forward in this difficult economy. However, a plane flight forces me into a different pace, reading for the pure pleasure of it, naps at will, the parade of America moving through my ever-present window seat view.

After a few hours, I was in quite another state of mind, excited about a new project I was detailing as we flew, much more in the immediate present of the landscape below, rising to the adventure of new people and unknown experiences that any trip brings.

This trip was no exception to likely interesting experiences. On being picked up at the Portland Maine Airport, I met an LA-based Argentinean filmmaker coming to study at the workshops for two weeks, Florencia Davidzon. It turns out that since a recent career switch, she has already made some moving short films, particularly moving was one made in Uganda and a new one on an LA Homeless Center's client dignity. We hung out a bit, at the end of my stay she needed a portrait for a film festival entry which I was glad to do for her. It's good for all of us in the arts to lend support where we can.

My classes also had a rich mixture of students, two Americans teaching high school abroad among them, one in Singapore and one in the United Arab Emirates. The photographs they brought deepened our look at the world and I think the work we did together strengthened their commitment to do even more. Another student was from Uruguay and came with a little GoCam video camera that produced some fun videos for the week, some with the camera mounted by suction cup on the van's roof as we drove through Acadia National Park. Some beautiful bird shots became part of the class due to a student from Florida who has found a wonderful site with alligators and birds in abundance.

We enjoyed a great field trip to Acadia National Park and once again went the see the visual wonderland of Andy Swift's Firefly fire engine restorations.

In the second week at the workshops, the class concentrated on printing. It was great to have the time to really work with people on some carefully crafted prints. We took a field trip to see the Paul Caponigro show (see right column) south in Rockland on the day I introduced digital black and white printing. Paul's black and white prints served as a great point of departure for our Black and White afternoon.

On the black and white conversion lecture that afternoon, I used a photograph made just the week before at Jordan Pond in Acadia. This proved useful to demonstrate the possibility of selective conversion of different colors in the original to custom black and white renditions.

Black and White Selective Conversion. Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park. Maine. 2011.

The Workshops shot a video of me and my good friend and excellent teacher Bobbi Lane talking about our experiences during the week, which is now online.

The video was shot with 2 Canon 5D IIs with a wired and wireless mike and a separate digital audio recorder.

This Week at the Workshops: 6/19 - 6/25 from Maine Media Workshops + College on Vimeo.

This trip, like so many others, reminded me of what a privilege it is to teach, to try to make a difference for people's passions. And going to Maine every summer has become a wonderful part of my summers. Good people, working hard to do good work at the Maine Media workshops.

Slide Show. week One Maine Media Workshops. 2011.

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Walking around Rockland Maine after seeing a wonderful exhibit by one of my photographic heroes, Paul Caponigro, we encountered some young folks hanging out, reminding me of a classic Paul Strand photograph.

So I walked up to them and asked if I could make a photograph. They were not only fine with the photo, but it once again added to the experience of human interaction because of what we see. And a much better image than any attempt to be secretive about making the photograph..

Hanging Out. Rockland Maine. 2011.

Speaking of Paul Caponirgo, the current show at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland Maine is superb. Walking the exhibition, it was clear to me once again why Paul's work so inspired me so long ago. There is a grace and emotion in his work that I rarely see in art. He is truly a gifted and sensitive soul.

Many of Paul's more recent photographs are exquisite still-life's done with a wonderful sensitivity to form and texture. Seeing these photographs gave me a needed kick to again start exploring the many found objects collecting on my shelves. Many of these objects truly are treasures, and many deserve the attention of a passionate camera.

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Photoshop Bodywork Discouraged By American Medical Association

On another note entirely, since the early days of digital imaging, I've maintained that photography's real value was in the truth a photograph could tell. Many people mourned the advent of digital imaging because of the ease of image manipulation. Of course, it is not the software or digital originals to blame for deception, it is photographers and retouchers with intent to deceive and monied interests with a motive to profit from the deception, to sell sex, political agendas or a variety of other products and services.

Now the American Medical Association has jumped in to publicly denounce the role image manipulation has taken in shaping our expectations of bodily appearance and health, particularly for young people.

Advertisers commonly alter photographs to enhance the appearance of models' bodies, and such alterations can contribute to unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image – especially among impressionable children and adolescents.

-AMA Journal