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

The View From Here - August 2011

San Francisco Digitally Workshop 2011.

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Summer Ramblings

Summer on the northern California coast is not the summer I grew up with, nor what most of us think of as summer. Our summer sun is often hidden here, grayed out by coastal overcast and occasional fog. When the sun comes out, it is glorious and mild, making it very difficult to stay indoors and work. The back and forth can lead to a profound seasonal confusion.

Of course, as a boy of the San Joaquin, to me summers are supposed to be hot and dry, sometimes searingly so. East coast summer humidity was unknown, and summer rain almost impossible to imagine. The long summer days of course also conjure up nostalgic memories of 3 months off from school and sense a sense of freedom little known in any other part of life.

However, this coast light is often magical, even if its not what my gut expects of summer. The cloud banks streaming over the mountains are poetry in motion on a scale that can take my breath away.

It's interesting that my kids think of this soft light as summer. And I can see its beauty, but I still yearn for more sun.

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Exquisite Earth Portfolio

We're almost done with the manufacture of the Exquisite Earth Portfolios we announced last December. The September Newsletter will feature a longer article about the process and considerations going into making a portfolio.

In the meantime, it seemed worthwhile to talk a little bit about the process...

When we curated and hung the show of new work last November, I was thinking about a sub-group of the work that could work as a portfolio. So even though I hadn't fully selected the prints, a number of portfolios were sold, forcing the issue to the forefront. As the months passed, I narrowed the selection and started making the prints.

We also needed to initiate the manufacture of the clamshell portfolio cases. It turns out that the cost of such custom boxes have gone up considerably since my last round of production and it took me a number of months to find a producer of quality at a reasonable price.

The next steps were to pick a fabric and finalize the design on the foil stamping of the case. On the fabric, I wanted something in earthtones, but a weave that could survive some handling without great sensitivity to dirt and scuffing.

left: the first printed boards and prints. above: comparing the new portfolio print to the exhibition print

On the printing and matt boards, I wanted to take this effort further than I ever had before, with custom imprints on the board and prints for the portfolio labels and identification information.

The story will deepen with the first of the finished portfolios which should be ready this month. We'll explore the whole process next month.

 

Slide Show. Exquisite Earth Portfolio Selections

The View From Here - September 2011

Clouds over Mono. 2011.

THE VIEW FROM HERE
by Stephen Johnson

On the East Desert of the West

The eastern Sierra almost doesn't seem like California. Although our state is many things, coast, forest, towering granite peaks, world-famous cities, huge tracks of big agriculture, it is also the home of many deserts and transitional zones from mountains to arid  high elevation lands that give life to the the oldest living beings on the planet and once fertile valleys turned to desert by diversions of their life-giving water.

It is in this setting that we explored the high Sierra and the lands below and east in our High and Eastern Sierraworkshop in late August. It was a challenging scenery in the sense of scale and wonder being reduced to 2D photo renderings, but a great set of opportunities to explore this environment and transitions of light-defined-form from the conceptual knowledge of what we were seeing. Ideas about big spaces, huge scale and arid high altitude lands are one thing, being there photographically was another. Those challenges are no small part of what I work with in a workshop and the ideas we explore.

We started on the shores of Mono Lake and my At Mono Lake exhibition, explaining the place, and my environmental work in the area. The  exhibition allowed us to talk about design, simplicity and other renderings of the very place we were exploring, in some fundamental ways that I've found to be a great asset to my Mono Lake workshops.

We then went up to the Yosemite high country at Tuolumne Meadows. We wandered a bit, got lost in form and color, the clear air and layers of meadows, rocks, grasses and melted snow flowing over orange-brown streambeds.

Grasses and Reflections, Yosemite, CA. 2011.

The crystallized lava field at Devil's Postpile was next on our workshop. Arriving in the morning helped us record the columns in a way I had not been able to on a previous trip. The west facing exposed verticals had not yet been lit by the morning light and we were able to see that form simply for what it was in the soft shade. The sunlight cresting over the ridge line was nice in the afternoon as well.

Further south we spent the day driving through the White Mountains, famous for their ancient Bristlecone Pine. The trees are endlessly fascinating, although often hard to photograph, particularly in sunlight where the patches of sunlight and shadow can overwhelm the sensual and twisted form of the aged wood. They are always beautiful and intriguing, but I would love to also see them in fog. As a teaching demo, I did one HDR set with my students to hold the extremes of light and dark, in order to create a less contrasty interpretation.

Bristlecone Pine Detail. White Mountains. 2011.

On this trip, we drove deeper into the Whites than I had in previous trips and discovered a realm of painted hills and otherworldly vistas that tugged on our imaginations. The road ends at the gate to a University of California Research Station deep into the range. It is a vast space, and one very worthy of the time it takes to get up there.

White Mountains. 2011.

South from Bishop on our way to Lone Pine, I had planned a stop at the Japanese-American Internment Camp at Manzanar. I had been by to pay my respects around 30 years ago, and had not realized a Manzanar National Historic Site had been created featuring a Visitors Center with great interpretation. The site is now well documented with many elements restored. I confess to tears at re-reading the story of these disrupted lives, loss of property and impressive coping of these Americans during World War II.

We spent our week along the eastern Sierran escarpment, a very dramatic line of mountains, extending from the southern Owens Valley all they way up to the Mono Basin. Near Lone Pine is the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states, Mt. Whitney at over 14,500 feet, rising almost 2 miles above the valley below. Although it is part of granite wave that makes the actual peak merely part of a continuum, the rising Sierra from the desert valley below is melodrama on steroids.

Whitney Crest. Lone Pine, CA. 2011.

From the morning sun of the Whitney Crest, to the boulder-strewn wild forms of the Alabama Hills along Movie Road, the landscapes around Lone Pine are dramatic and accessible. After many hours out, we went back into town for some refreshment, but having found a garden seating and some pitchers, the skyline was beckoning to the west, and it wasn't long before I was heading back into the hills with an afternoon sky that was putting on a performance of ever warmer light beams, mist and clouds that I had to get back to. (see this month's Featured Print)

Organic Clouds and a Body of Work

Walking the trail up to Panum Crater at Mono Lake, I noticed some amazing clouds starting to form. As we walked on toward the top of the crater, the clouds got wilder and wilder. I found myself completely seduced by their grace, intricacy and living form. The winds were changing their appearance so quickly that they seemed alive, literally evolving before my eyes.

After a few minutes I realized I was in the process of making a series of misty life-like forms blowing over the skies of my old friend Mono Lake. A small body of work was playing itself out right before my eyes, linking with the hundreds of aerial cloud images I've been making for decades. It was quite satisfying, and instantly encouraging of delving deeper into the seeing, on the spot, with no intention whatsoever.

It was amazing to watch.

I suppose I am always in search of context, in a somewhat curious state of my mind, shifting through information and stimulus trying to sort it out, to see how it all fits together. I think most of us are doing that all of the time. If we are engaged in creative activities we are likely to be assembling the input into manifestations related to that expression. It is certainly true for me visually with photography. It is also true for me when succinct phrases come to mind that could evolve into song lyrics.

Those clouds over Panum were a powerful contextualizing opportunity for so many organic forms I've seen and recorded over the decades. The aerial work of cloud design and abstraction for sure, but the graceful sensual expression of natural form that is so core to my work as well. The fact that a small series is possible in one afternoon was a wonderful conclusion and goes some real distance to that question we are all asking ourselves, of what do we do with our work. Seeing it as a body of expression is a step toward organizing the work into presentations, web galleries, print on demand books, shows, etc.

Grasses and Tufa stones. Mono Lake, CA. 2011.

Devil's Postpile. CA. 2011.

Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power water diversion aqueduct near Highway 168 above Bishop. 2011.

Alabama Hills. 2011.

The View From Here - October 2011

Sun Setting into Pacific with Green Flash. 2011.

THE VIEW FROM HERE
by Stephen Johnson

Work

I love my work. The careful crafting of an image, from out in the world on the edge of experience, to the methodical but empowering printing of a finely crafted print. I love my work.

The satisfaction is partially tied up in the act of creation itself. In photography, where there was the passage of time and light, ephemeral and fleeting, we create an impression of a moment fixed, rendered by light, captured as photons to electrons, and held as electrical charges. Complex without a doubt, but the sheer elegance of holding the light of a moment remains.

I'm working these last few weeks on finishing the first set of portfolios from my Exquisite Earth series. With every new image explored, honing down the magic ten photographs for this first abstract set of recent work, there is something mind clearing in the resolve to select carefully, print with dedication and be satisfied with nothing less than reaching further than I thought possible.

Being Out There

Being out there in the real world, the natural world, is what working as a photographer is fundamentally about for me. Being in a state of mind where a flowing river is a miraculous entity, almost organism, seeming to flow endlessly and keep building. Being in a state of mind where every time you see the sun set into the ocean it is a wonder of celestial mechanics, weird refraction, and mind blowing scale and distance. Much less seeing a green flash. I never want to cease to being fascinated by the time machine that a starry night simply is. Photography out in the natural world is about all of this for me.

Being Back

The excitement of seeing my photographs as they offload, starting to examine my witness, enduring disappointments, but being amazed at those extraordinary few, that is the high of the post photographic experience for me.

Image processing, although critical is less exciting. It is where a scene held can be made really seen, understood, and balanced where needed. It is where tonal vision and memory can collide, idealized vision often stomp on magic, and where magic itself can be revealed.

For me image processing is a direct connection back to the scene. It is a processes of analyzing what can I do to decode and make visible what I saw with my eyes. The witnessed scene is the cherished starting point and for me the wonder of photography. After all, you have to appreciate the view for what it is, to want to render it for what is was. I find magic in that appreciation and rendering.

The Sacred Print

Laying the image onto paper can sometimes seem almost like a religious experience. Although imbued with somewhat less esoterica than a darkroom, the methodology of color management and print drivers hold no romance for me. But the subdued lighting of my print space, having the proper tools and paper, knowing the process from so many angles, I feel like I'm tracking solid ground, where I know how to make beauty, and hold it with grace and subtlety. I feel at home in such a place. Deeply at home.

My studio lab is such a physical place for me. And I believe it has been for scores of printing students over the last six years. It ia a place of refuge and craft, learning and aspirations fulfilled.

Of course, printing can't help but be frustrating too, and so as to not paint too rosy or romantic of a picture, it is also a place where challenged knowledge and aspiration can meet head-on––where sorting out understanding, technical glitches and evolving senses of problems and possibilities have to be resolved. And that is good.

 

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An Arts and Education Economy in Decline

Workshop enrollments are down for so many people and organizations I talk to. They tell similar stories of running small classes or cancellations. Print sales have collapsed for many. Many are giving up on the arts as careers. Many are trying to find any work they can as the challenges of this long recession mount.

I have no great insights here in this Autumn of 2011 and we are not an exception to those challenges. Of course, as self-employed artists we can't lay ourselves off, as has happened to so many. I know I have to stay true to why I started down this path, this vision of life, art and work all bound together, be willing to work even harder and keep restructuring diversified income streams in this shattered economy. We have basically adopted an internal "no cancellation" policy on workshops, even if it means running some smaller classes.

We are all in this together in the arts. We need to be imaginative, share resources, be very open to helping one and other, and stay focused on the rich lives we are able to live with art in our hearts.

It might be a good time to re-read Ted Orland and David Bayles Art and Fear.

I remain in love with my work.

If you've been thinking about a workshop, an original print or portfolio, give us a call. The gift of a workshop or the treasure of a beautiful print can be a great idea for the holidays coming up. We'll be doing gift card discounts, a holiday Open House, and perhaps even a new exhibition before the end of the year.