"Starship Saguaro"

 I was photographing the Superstition Mountains at sunrise in early January of this year.  The sunrise was absolutely clear.  As I say "with no clouds in the sky for 300 miles in any direction".  A straight up bald sky.  I really enjoyed the backlit Saguaro and the light streaks coming across the desert floor.  What I didn't like was that the sky was completely boring.  As I was looking at the image on my computer monitor I began to wonder,"what would happen if I could show a starfield in the sky above the cactus.

Back in the late fall I had been camped in Northern Arizona.  While there I made some photographs of the night sky, which is amazing when you get out away from the light pollution that afflicts any urban area or even the area around small rural towns.

From that it was a relatively simple process to add the starfield.  The trick is, of course, to hide the fingerprints of the work that was done.

The Black and White Advantage

I’m Bullish on Black and White Photography

It’s three a.m. Something by Bach or Mozart is playing softly in the background. An image of “Morning Light on the Towers, Needles District” is slowly appearing on the piece of paper I am gently massaging in a tray of chemicals under the soft amber glow of a safelight. The fan of my enlarger hums softly in the background. In my mind, this is what photography is all about.

Months earlier I had carried my backpack of over fifty pounds into the early morning darkness in search of this and other images. After locating a promising composition I set up my camera, field edited the composition, determined the exposure I thought would yield the best results and exposed the film. From there the piece of film was transported to my darkroom, processed and proofed and now I am in the process of extracting the image I know is hiding inside the negative.

The reward of all this effort is an image on the wall whose highlights softly reflect image detail and whose shadows glow in subtlety. They almost always evoke an emotional response. You can’t simply “take them or leave them”.

Creating and printing great, even good, black and white photography demands a commitment. It is not for the weak of heart or knee or the uncommitted!

Black and White photography is, by nature, a more abstract medium than color. By that I mean that with the element of color removed from the equation, objects and images are reduced to their most basic elements. In order to be successful an image must “work” based on its own merits; the fall and flow of light and the relationship of objects within the scene. By it’s very nature, black and white photography doesn’t, indeed can’t, tell the whole story but often adds a very crucial element absent in many color photographs; emotion.

A primary task in black and white photography is to remove unneeded and unnecessary elements. Black and white photography is a medium unto itself. It should not, as often happens, be an afterthought or a by product of a color photograph that doesn’t quite “get there”. A black and white image shouldn’t be the result of a grayscale conversion of a color image, no matter how sophisticated the technique! It should not be treated as the end result of a second rate color image. If it doesn’t work well in color, it probably won’t work well in black and white either.

True black and white has a much greater capability for self expression than a simple color conversion. The black and white photographic artist must make the commitment to take the time to develop not only the camera skills needed but also the darkroom skills necessary to bring the image to life.

There is a much greater opportunity in black and white for an object to “morph” into a “what is it”, losing all sense of scale proportion. Being reduced to pure form and elements of design enables the art and artist to produce images that are emotionally evocative.

Am I saying that classically produced black and white photographs are superior to color images? Emphatically yes! When a photographic artist goes into the field to produce traditionally processed black and white images, especially when using large format cameras they are, of necessity, more technically oriented and observant than the typical photographer who works in color, especially if the color images are produced in a digital environment. When was the last time you saw an automatic focus, automatic exposure 4x5 camera? Never!

That is not to say that there haven’t been great color photographs and aren't great photographers who work and have worked in color. Eliot Porter and Christopher Burkett come to mind. But honestly, as cameras become more and more sophisticated, and are able to solve more and more complex problems, with no input from the photographer, the art and craft of producing great photographic works is being lost. More and more the pictures being produced are the product of a computer in the camera; not the computer between the ears.

When the Whole World is Digital, Why Still Analog?

I am not anti-technology. Indeed, in my commercial work I do work in a digital environment; and it serves me well. What I also know is that increasingly few of the “photographers” who sell their work are technically and artistically trained. As a result the caliber of photographic work being foisted on the public as photographic art is in decline even while advances in the caliber of our equipment make the tools used better than ever. Paul Strand once remarked, and this is a paraphrase… “Isn’t it interesting that the quality of our tools has increased and the quality of our work has not”?

A good photographer, working very hard, may be able to produce 12 significant works in a year’s time. Quite a departure from current thinking that all I have to do to produce better photographs is to get the latest and the greatest camera body and lens and I’ll automatically get better photographs. Not when the weakest link in the equation is you! I believe that until you really, really know your material, camera and film, and what it will do under varying conditions, any really good photographs you produce are more a product of chance than they are of your creative eye and developed technique.

Each successive iteration of a photograph, that I process in my chemicals, is the result of decisions made about the previous version. An initial print is made, based on my best judgment about that negative. When it is pulled from the fixer it is placed on a sheet of Plexiglas and moved to an area for evaluation. It is examined to determine whether it’s too light, too dark or just right; the initial print seldom is, “just right”. What about the level of contrast? Is there too much or too little? Are there areas of the print that need to have the level of contrast increased or lowered? All of these factors have to be evaluated before a final print is arrived at. Then, once these questions have been answered, and a solution arrived at it is time to produce the final print. Provided I have recorded all the steps correctly, and executed all of them perfectly, perhaps ten or more tries later, the image is arrived at. However, no matter how hard I try to make the perfect photograph it is probably an elusive objective. Mistakes are an unavoidable part of the process. The foibles, and errors and emotions become part of the end photograph. They are an inextricable part of the equation. That is one of the things that separates a hand printed black and white photograph from one that is produced digitally. When you see a photograph hanging on a wall and you see the small errors, maybe a black speck caused by a piece of dust that was inside a film holder, or a small scratch on the image caused by film damage, you can know, at that time, that this is a hand printed photograph. As much as we work to eliminate these things, they will always be there because this photograph was produced at the hands of the artist, not inside a computer and then printed out on a sterile and unfeeling printer.

Nathan McCreery, Landscape Photographer

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Nathan McCreery, a professional landscape photographer based in Clovis, New Mexico. He is well known for creating exquisite photographs of the American West. He is often one of the most popular members on the photography network.

How would you describe your photographic style?

I would describe my photographic style as the “classic landscape”. I have been influenced, very heavily, by the work of Edward Weston, Morley Baer, Philip Hyde, Eliot Porter, Ernst Haas, and of course Ansel Adams. One of my goals, in the photographic realm is to be a master printer.

At one time I wanted to be a master printer both in black and white and color, since I really admire the work of Eliot Porter. Eliot was one of the absolute masters of the dye transfer process, just as Adams was a master of the black and white print. Digital changed all that.

With the advent of digital media, the materials needed to print my own Cibachromes (later changed to Ilfochrome) have become very difficult to obtain. With that change I have completely changed direction in my photographic work and I work very little in color. Almost all of my work is in black and white now, although occasionally I do expose a piece of color film.

How did you first get into photography?

When I was in art school, to be a graphic designer, I was required to take a course in photography. When I saw the first photograph appear, as if by magic, I was instantly hooked. Shortly after that friends learned I had a camera, and sort of knew how to use it, they began asking me to make photographs for them. By the time I graduated from art school I had an established clientele.

Where do you get your creative inspiration from?

The way I usually work is to park my truck at a likely location, strap on my backpack, gather my tripod and go for a walk. I look for patterns and materials that are visually interesting to me. When I find something that catches my attention I then begin the process of seeing how it will fit into a composition. If I find something that will be the main subject of my photograph and then find supporting elements that will reinforce the main material, and they can be built into a composition I will set my tripod, and then get out my camera, attach a lens and begin the process of refining my visual ideas until I arrive at a final solution.

Needless to say this is not a “run and gun” proposition. Everything is very deliberate and disciplined. I have a hard time that Michelangelo got up the day before the work on the Cistine chapel began and said, …”ummmm, I think I’ll paint on the ceiling tomorrow, maybe I ought to figure out some compositions”. While it is true that in photography we must be able to respond spontaneously I also believe that photographic master works are the result of careful planning. It has been said that genius is what happens when careful preparation meets opportunity.

What is typically in your camera bag?

I typically carry a Toyo 45A, a Schneider 47XL, 65mm Grandagon, 90mm Sinaron-S, 150mm Sinaron-S, 210mm Sironar-S and 300mm Rodagon lens. If you will note, all of the lenses, except the 47XL, are made by Rodenstock. I believe them to be the very finest lenses ever made. They are all much sharper than the film I put behind them. There will also be an assortment of filters, such as a yellow, dark orange, red and green, as well as a UV15 and polarizer, several cable releases, lens cleaning tissue and fluid, a flashlight and level as well as some protein bars. My tripod is either a Velbon 530 or 630 with a Linhoff quick release device.

What are you looking forward to purchasing next?

My ideal would be a square digital back for my Hasselblads, but those are at least $10,000.00 so the chances are that won’t happen. Other than that I have hardly any equipment lusts.

Did you have any formal training in photography?

Yes! After my art school teaching I have been fortunate to have been trained by several master photographers. Several were either assistants to Adams or worked in his workshop programs. I have always sought out people that were at the very top in their fields in photography, to train me. It is an amazing thing to me that many times the very finest people in their fields are very accessible to interested beginners who are willing to ask questions and incorporate the principles the masters are teaching. I have been in several workshop settings with some of the worlds most accomplished photographers when an opinionated workshop attendee actually tried to “correct” the master. It is very annoying.

Do you post-process your photos?

Post processing is an interesting term. We used to call it darkroom work, and yes! I do gobs of darkroom work, and computer work. I use the computer to do my color processing now, and the conventional darkroom for my black and white film processing and printing. The only software I use is gray matter, in the darkroom, and Photoshop in the computer.

How do you approach printing? What is your process?

In black and white, the first thing I do after the film has been processed is to make a contact proof of each negative. Typically I then scan each neg. and create a file for that image. Often I will do some preliminary work with the negative on the computer to get a “feel” for the information the negative wants to give me, then go to the darkroom and begin printing. I am very old school. By that I mean that I have a number of techniques I have developed in the darkroom that allow me to arrive at a print that is emotionally and intellectually satisfying to me. Some of these are contrast masking, dodge masking, Potassium ferracyanide reduction and others. I find that most often the negative almost tells me what I should do in printing as long as I follow a very careful regimen. My wife tells me that my personality type changes completely when I am in the darkroom

What has been your favorite photo location?

That’s a difficult question to pin down. Usually it’s wherever it is that I happened to work last. The location I return to most often is the area around Page, Arizona and the mountains above Pagosa Springs and Estes Park, Colorado. My last location to work in is a place I hadn’t been to for 30 years and it’s amazing; Valle Vidal, New Mexico.

There is no substitute for knowledge and good technique. Instead of buying a new lens the photographer would be more well served going to a workshop with an established pro whose work they admire. Be yourself! Don’t look for Ansel’s tripod holes. The only one who can be you is you, and that’s the only thing you’ll ever be really good at. People ask me why I use film and hand print when digital is so much faster. For me, creating art isn’t about speed or convenience. It’s about making in image that is self expressive, which is the essence of art. For me it’s important that my art pieces be personally produced by me. They should have my DNA on them, and as long as the materials are available I’ll keep it that way.

Classic Black and White in the Digital Age

If you are interested in creating classic black and white photographic art with your digital camera you might be interested in this.

Classic Black and White Photography in the
Digital Age

My primary means of artistic expression is black and white photography. Over the years I have worked equal parts black and white as well as color. However with the advent of the digital age I have migrated more and more the direction of black and white as a means of personal expression, since black and white is more often assumed to be hand printed than color. All of my black and white photographs are hand printed. Lately I have been contemplating the state of black and white photography, since I teach workshops and many of the participants now use digital cameras, and wondering what the best method of producing black and white is when the original exposure is digitally produced rather than the more conventional black and white original; film.

There are several ways to produce black and white images from digital files. In my experience all of them have strengths and weaknesses. Without question, the easiest to do is to make a color photograph and then, with the magic of Photoshop turn the file to gray scale, click “save as”, and voila! a black and white photograph has been made. Another methodology that has come to pass in the last few years came to pass with the introduction, by Adobe in their Photoshop program, of the ability to convert to black and white with filters that are built into the program. Before the introduction of CS3 I would separate each of the channels and make my adjustment in them then put them back together and flatten the image if I needed to make a black and white image from a digital file and the output quality was more critical than normal usage such a black and white of an executive portrait for publication. (Bear in mind that my usual practice was to use an additional role of black and white film, as well as the normal color, if the agency told be ahead of time that they would need both black and white and color.) Undoubtedly there are other methodologies that involve using “levels”, “curves” and other Photoshop tools to produce what may be very respectable images. Also, there are several “plug-ins” that purport to do a good job as well. All of these methods work, and are acceptable under certain circumstances. However, my experience with digital files that were converted from color to black and white is that as the image size increased the image quality fell off, sometimes at an alarming rate. While I could easily produce a 30x40 from an original digital file, I began seeing “static” at 16x20 in B&W, especially when the red filter in Photoshop is used. If I have a file, or a negative, and it won’t produce at least a 16x20 that is virtually grain free, that image is pretty much useless to me. I am aware that some folks say they have solved that problem however my strong suspicion is that while the image does look good on the monitor it won’t produce a 16x20, or larger print with an acceptable grain pattern. I only can report what my results have been.

I began wondering if there might be a better method of producing gallery quality black and whites using a digital camera. My next thought was, if I were using black and white film, in a 35 mm camera how would I tonal range contrast? The obvious answer was to use normal filters designed for use in black and white photography. Accordingly I gathered up my black and white filters, a #25 red, #21 Dark orange, #58 green and a #8 light yellow. These are my most commonly used filters when I am using black and white film. The natural question in my mind was, “would the digital sensor respond to the use of these filters approximately the same way as black and white film does? How would the camera’s sensor respond to the very strong color balance of the filters? To my knowledge no one had done this experiment before. In the test, all of the photographs were exposed at an ASA of 100 at 12 mega-pixels in camera RAW. The photographs were imported into Light Room and adjustments were made on each image to bring the mid tone values as close to each other as possible. The images were then opened in Photoshop where the photographs were converted to grayscale and final adjustments made to bring crisp detail in the highlights and have open, luminous shadows.

What I was interested in seeing was how the tones of the image, which are in color, would respond to the introduction of strong color filtration. The photographs are of a locust tree that I drive past everyday. Bear in mind that my concern here wasn’t to produce a salon quality black and white photograph of the tree but to gather information on the effectiveness of black and white filters in digital photography.

As you will note there are differences between the results that were produced using the different filters. Some are very subtle, some are more apparent. As you look at the images pay careful attention to the leaves that are yellow in the color image, and their relationship to the green leaves that haven’t yet changed.

Now to the big advantage. As I looked at the images produced using filters, on my monitor, there was no apparent increase in granularity as the photographs increased in size from any of the filters. When I used Photoshop to convert the color image in the test there was a huge increase in granularity as the size of the photograph increased, particularly when using the red Photoshop filter. Additionally, when using the red Photoshop filter, I saw a noticeable break down in the gradation of tones in areas of smooth tonality such as the sky.

My conclusion is this. If your intent is to make gallery quality black and white photographs in black and white, using a digital camera, the best method for you may be to get out the old black and white filters and use them just as we did before there was digital.

Spruce Trees and Albion Basin

Albion Basin is a beautiful little area in the mountains just above Snowbird, Utah! I was just in Utah! for a few days. This area is exquisite.

Twin Peaks Cornice and Pipline Bowl, Wasatch Mountains

This is an amazing area, but then I'm always blown away with the magnificence of nature. We were on the top of this saddle that sits between two ridges, Sugarloaf (aka Mt. Baldy, every mountain range has a Mt. Baldy)on the east and Twin Peaks on the west. Elevation was 11,000 ft. My flatland and desert heart was at 105 resting, but you gotta love the altitude!

Spring Runoff, Little Cottonwood Creek

The area had just had huge rains. That along with spring runoff from the heavy winter snow made all of the streams into booming tumults.

It's the light Stupid!!!! II

While I was in the Wasatch I began thinking about photography and the photographic process and what it is that makes a certain photograph effective, while another photograph of the same exact material is really awful. I came to the conclusion that one MAJOR factor is organization; not only of the light and light pattern but also of the elements of the composition. That being said...

An additional factor that must be considered, and may be the overriding key issue, is organization. When a photographic composition is being considered organization of the light pattern is the single factor that must be considered above all else. If the light pattern is well organized it represents the effective, notice I didn’t say correct, use of light. Being able to recognize an effectively organized light pattern is one factor that will enable the photographer to create good, even great photographs, of almost any subject material. Look at the light, it will be the key in being able to create the photographs you desire.

It's the light Stupid!!!!

Nathan McCreery

“It is light that reveals a matter; the form and shape of an object. It is light that allows us to "peek" into the soul of our subject and to expose its essence.” Nathan McCreery 2004 from an address to the Imaging Professionals of the Southwest meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico

There are five things that you need to know about light. I believe that if you know, and understand, these five things you can effectively photograph anything and make it look as good as it can look. These five things are; quantity, quality, direction, spread and color.

Quantity

Quantity; almost every one understands that sometimes there is a lot of light and other times there is less light. The quantity of light available to expose sensitized material, whether it is a silver halide emulsion or a charged coupled device (sensor in a digital camera) is measured by a light meter of some kind. An exposure meter simply measures the amount of light available to a scene and translates that amount of light to a series of numbers that tells you how to set your camera to get a “correct” exposure. You have to measure the amount of light incident to the scene to know how to set your camera’s exposure controls. I won’t spend a lot of time on this subject since most people can look at one situation and realize that there is either a lot of light available or not a lot of light available. The ability to understand that is, or should be, pretty intuitive.

Quality

Quality; here’s where a lot of people really have trouble understanding and seeing, and some never do grasp what we’re talking about. There are two qualities of light; spectral and diffuse.

Spectral light is characterized as being harsh with shadows that have sharply delineated edges. Spectral light sources are small in size, relative to the object being photographed. As such direct sunlight will be very specular in its quality. The smaller the light source is, the more specular its light will be.

Specular light is one of the most difficult light sources to work with because it is so harsh in its nature. As a general rule, the more specular the light source is, the more difficult it is to work with. Because of that characteristic I usually suggest that beginning photographers avoid using it whenever possible. It is interesting note that some of Ansel Adams most well known and iconic landscapes were created using a spectral light source so it isn’t that the light source can’t be used to create stunning photographs. It’s just that it can be difficult to use, and it requires visual sophistication and technical skill to make it work for you and not against you.

Diffuse light has the characteristic of emanating from a larger light source. The larger the light source, the more diffuse the light quality will be. Diffuse light has the characteristic of having soft edged shadows and of being a gentler light source, and also being relatively easy to work with and being very forgiving. Objects that are illuminated with a diffuse light source will have more open shadows.




Another factor in using Diffuse light is that it has lower overall image and local contrast than spectral light. In fact where spectral light can have a contrast range, or scene brightness range, that is almost un-manageable, a scene that is illuminated by diffuse light may be so low in contrast that the scene, as presented, is boring and in need of a boost in contrast.

There are two times each day when you are guaranteed the very soft luminescent light that photographers covet so much. One is just before sunrise while the illumination from the sun is reflecting back into the scene off the western sky. At this time of the day the moisture from the previous evening is still on vegetation and the light will be very soft and diffused. The other is after the sun has cleared the western horizon. Again, the quality of light will be very soft and luminescent with many of the same characteristics as pre-sunrise. One other benefit to photographing after the sun is down is that, many times, the color of the light will be noticeably warmer than at sunrise. I try to use both times of the day to make photographs when I am working.

The unpredictable factor that can create amazing light possibilities is cloud cover. When there is strong cloud cover, the clouds themselves become the light source rather than the sun. Essentially they become a giant diffuser or, in some cases, a reflector depending on their orientation to the sun and the scene. To summarize, diffuse light will occur outdoors when the sun is hidden by the curvature of the earth, both before sunrise and after sunset, when there is significant cloud cover, and when the direct light of the sun is blocked by a physical structure such as a hill, mountain or building. The bottom line here is that the photographer needs to be ready to deal with these qualities of light and know what to do when they present themselves. When you are out, even when you aren’t making photographs watch the light and learn to see what it is revealing to you.

Direction

One of the most important things to watch, and be aware of, is the direction of light. Watch the effect its direction is having on the thing you are interested in portraying. What is happening to the highlights and the shadows?

It is the direction of light that will give an object the illusion of being round in a photograph. Remember that a photograph is only two dimensional but we need to create the impression that our photograph has depth and dimension. If we don’t the photograph may appear flat and uninteresting.

The only tool we have at our disposal to do that is light direction. When the light source is at an angle to the scene or object we are portraying one side of the object will reflect more light back to the camera than the other side. It is this difference in quantities of light reflecting off the object to the viewer that will create the feeling of roundness and give depth and dimension to the scene. You also will find that not understanding what the direction of light does to scene can be deadly in the production of a finished photograph.

Usually, when the light is directly overhead, it is not very conducive to making great photographs. There can be a tendency to be so “taken” with an object or subject or scene that we respond emotionally to it. The camera only sees the scene analytically. It is incapable of an emotional response but the emotional response is what we want. Because of this we must learn to see things the way our camera sees them. .

Spread

Spread; when I speak about “Spread” I am talking about how many stops difference there are between the most brilliant highlight in the image and the deepest dark tone where you will want separation of tones. Usually, in your photographs you will want the highlights to carry detail, or tonal separation, and the dark areas to also carry detail, or a separation of tones. The times when you will want to have highlights with no detail or large areas of dark tonality without detail are relatively small. We almost always want the highlights and the dark tones to carry detail. Of course there are exceptions to this “guideline” but they are definitely the minority.

It is important for you to know your media and its exposure characteristics. You need to know which part of the image you meter is reading to give you exposure information. You need to know how many stops of light your media is capable of recording before you begin to have either highlights that are blown out, with no detail, or shadow areas that are blocked up with no detail. My understanding is that a digital camera set to record an image as a J-Peg file is only capable of recording about a 4 or five stop range of tones. If we set the camera to record the image in RAW it will increase that range some but there will still be many situations in which the range of tones in the scene will far outstrip the camera’s ability to record them.

When this type of situation arises, and it will, the photographer is faced with at least two possibilities. Record the image with the knowledge that you are going to lose either highlight detail, with the highlights completely “blown out”, or shadow areas that are so dark that they carry no detail. Neither option is desirable. The other possibility, or option, is to remember the spot and come back to it when conditions are such that the spread is within your camera or media’s limitations.

It is very important that the photographer pay close attention to spread, or scene brightness range, to get a digital file or negative that will closely mirror what the photographer had in mind when they made the original exposure. Don’t rely on the camera to save the day for you. You need to manage the creation of the original exposure so that it gives you the information you will need to create the photograph you see in your head.

Color

In the days before digital it was mandatory that a professional who photographed in color have an understanding of how the color of light would affect a photographic image.
For instance, the color of light emitted by a fluorescent light is markedly different that the color of light the proceeds from an incandescent light bulb. If you weren’t aware of the difference there would be a big, very unpleasant surprise when the film came back from the color lab. The same holds true for film that was exposed by an electronic flash, film that was exposed outdoors under sunlight and film exposed using a regular light bulb. Each light source had a different color temperature or color and each had different filtration requirements to get a pleasing, if not accurate, color balance in the finished work.

Of course, every digital photographer today understands that the white balance of the camera must be set on the correct calibration so that the file as it comes out of the camera is as accurate as possible. It is necessary that you make sure that the color settings on your camera match the color of light that is being emitted by the light source you are working with.

In Conclusion

If your desire is to create truly eloquent works of photographic art the road probably won’t be easy. There is a daunting learning curve. While it is true that modern photographic equipment has made the task easier than ever, it is also true that you’ll never be able to consistently produce work that is greater than your knowledge level. My strong suggestion to you is that you begin with all haste to become as knowledgeable about light as soon as you can. Only through understanding light, and a few other things, can you begin to create the masterpiece that is hiding within you. It’s the light we photograph, not the object.

This essay is owned exclusively by Nathan McCreery. It may not be reproduced by any means, in part or as a whole, without his express consent. It may be used in areas of scholarly research with the correct and appropriate citations. Copyright 2010, Nathan McCreery, Clovis, New Mexico.

Where has all the Beauty Gone

This essay was first published in "LensWork" in 1999. It was written by a good friend and one of the finest contemporary photographers of the landscape in the world today; Bruce Barnbaum. Bruce does excellent photography, all produced in his darkroom the traditional way, not a pixel in sight! It's worth a read. I would be interested in your response. Bruces work has been a great influence in my photographic work and he has direct ties back to Ansel Adams, the god of light.

Where Has All the Beauty Gone
by Bruce Barnbaum

On August 11, 1996 I attended a photographic exhibit at the Whitney Museum in New York City titled "Perpetual Mirage, a Photographic Narrative of the Desert West." Included in the large exhibit were about a half dozen landscapes by Ansel Adams and a few of Edward Weston's print. Much of the exhibit was filled with photographs of suburban tract homes and industrial parks by Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams and others. Why?

It seems to me that the Whitney Museum and the exhibitor's curator, May Castleberry, is either caught up in fad-or perhaps it is the leader of the fad-of boycotting beauty. In its place is a boring combination of ugliness, shock value, social commentary, or just plain humdrum, boring work. The photographs by Baltz, Robert Adams (never to be confused with Ansel), and the like fall largely into the latter two categories.

These photographers tend to refer to themselves as "realists," stating the imagery of Ansel Adams and others of his ilk have no pertinence today because the magnificent landscapes are being decimated, and people should see what we're facing, not the romanticism of what existed. There is certainly an abundance of truth behind such statements, and the writings of Robert Adams state the case with supreme eloquence. Anyone who has watched the loss of open space to inappropriate development, and the general decline in the traditional character of the West, would agree wholeheartedly with Adams' writings. But one wonders if the photographic work produced by these "realists" offers a strong counterbalance for the offending "romanticism?" I don't think so, because they are not offering up art with their everyday snapshots. To show the nation (or the world) the things that we see everyday, and to show it in an everyday manner, raises nobodies level of understanding. It expands nobody's horizons. It does nothing because it tells us what we already know. It doesn't even attempt to show everyday things in a unique, or insightful way. The work produced by this school of photography can best be termed "the dull school," or "the boring school," or the "humdrum school." It is artistically weak, perhaps even artistically devoid.

The history of art-all art in all media, including painting, sculpture, photography, music, literature, etc. has been one of raising peoples awareness, appreciation, and spirit through a combination of artifices. Beauty is certainly the greatest. Deeper insight is still another. Surprise is yet another. And drama another. The work highlighted in the Whitney display exhibited none of these attributes. There is no beauty whatsoever, no deep insight, no drama, no light, and surely no surprises, except of course the undesirable surprise that everyday, workmanlike snapshots were displayed in a museum with such a lofty reputation.

In producing photographic art, light is unquestionably the most essential ingredient, yet none of these photographs exhibited interesting or unusual light. They were as dull in their lighting as they were in their subject matter. Appropriate light can and should be used to help make a statement, but the repetitive use of flat light on boring subject matter makes no statement because it fails to hold the viewers attention. The viewer looks once with disinterest and walks away yawning, to yawn again at the next image. ( I will not be moved by the argument that dull light is the best vehicle for expressing dullness.)

Furthermore, there was no context for the dullness. Ugly development was not shown destroying whole landscapes, but only shown in detail, thus the negative contention that the landscape is being to such intrusive dullness. It could not even be determined that the development was in the West, except by written statements from the photographers that they were there. (I happen to believe that the landscape is being lost to inappropriate random development-I see it everywhere I go-but failed to see it in those photographs.) The photographs not only lacked beauty, but the even lacked the context, and yes, think of beauty...if not in the subject matter they photographed, surely in the prints they produced.

Is beauty a thing of the past? I don't think so. Art will always be based on beauty, and the best art will always be beautiful insightful, surprising, poignant, etc. It will possess qualities opposed to dullness and everyday vision.

Did Rembrandt try to produce ugliness? Did Shakespeare try to use everyday language? Did Puccini run away from a beautiful sonata? Did Dostoevsky shun deep insights? Did Picasso avoid surprise? Did Beethoven sidestep the dramatic? Did Twain shy away from sharp-tongued comments? Did Frank Lloyd Wright shun stunning new ways to meld natural and human interruptions? Will any of these artist's be remembered? Of course! They will be remembered because they were true artist's who produced singularly striking works of art in their fields by remaining true to the essence of art. By contrast, the boring images exhibited in the Whitney Museum will not stand the test of time because they were so devoid of every essential artistic ideal.

The work of the humdrum school will continue to be exhibited in places like the Whitney Museum by curators like Ms. Castleberry, but does that work bring about any new revelations or change anything? I see no evidence of it.. Does it add to the beauty of the world? Not a whit!

But if the same question were asked of the work of Ansel Adams, the answer is a resounding YES! Several national parks owe their very existence to the work done by Ansel. Kings Canyon National Park in California was created after several senators were shown Ansel's photographs of the mountainous realm. The same is true of several other parks and wilderness areas that exist today. Unless the crazies from the the far right wing of the political spectrum have their way, those parks will outlive all of us and will stand forever as a legacy for centuries to come. Ansel's work changed America...for the better and forever.

Ansel's famous "Moonrise over Hernandez," "Monolith, Half Dome," "Yosemite, Clearing Storm,", "Sunrise, Lonepine and the Sierra Nevada," and so many others remain etched in people's minds who have no interface with photography other than in their lasting impressions of individual photographs. Ansel Adams work did indeed have an impact and a pertinence-and continues to have pertinence that the humdrum work displayed at the Whitney Museum could never hope to equal. The reason is simple. Ansel' work is beautiful. It's dramatic. It sings, and we sing with it. It's uplifting to our spirit to see it. It surprises us with its glorious quality of light. We walk away enchanted by what we saw, and it remains a part of our memory. The humdrum school produces nothing that has that effect on us.

So why did the Whitney Museum fill an exhibit on the American West with such and abundance of dull snapshots? I can't answer that. I can't even begin to comprehend and answer. It appears that Ms. Castleberry and the Whitney Museum have lost their bearings concerning art in their search for a social statement. But strong statements must be artistically strong to be effective, to say something, to raise our level of awareness, to make us think, to make us change, to make a difference. Those exhibited at the Whitney failed to make any real statement because they failed miserably as art. Obviously the Whitney and it's curator, Ms. Castleberry, never recognized that failure. My guess is that the public did.

reprinted by permission of the author
copyright 1999.

Broadwater Hollow - Buffalo National River

This is one of my favorite photographs from the Buffalo National River Residency. There are several that I really like. This falls is normally only one but there had been so much rain that one channel couldn't hold the rain and I was fortunate to catch it when there was a double falls.

A Delicate Forest, Buffalo River Trail

I was on the Buffalo River Trail in Buffalo National River in Arkansas. The Redbuds and Dogwoods had just begun budding out. Spring is an amazing time. New life is everywhere and these woods were just exquisite.

Buffalo River is next week, starting Sunday for ten days. I'll be staying at an area called Steel Creek which is at the west end of Buffalo National River in Arkansas. I hope to be able to photograph the redbuds while they are in bloom and to catch them at a time when they're bloom overlaps the dogwood bloom. At any rate it will be a great opportunity to do some new work and do some reading.

This is a photograph I did last summer when we were in the Pagosa Springs area. It is a portion of the upper Rio Grande River. The water was so violent it reminded be of the agitator in a laundry machine and was also turbulent; thus the title, a word that doesn't exist but probably should. The perch was very "dicey". One step either way and I go for a swim. One tripod leg slip and my camera does.

Virginia and I in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was cold, very, very, cold and windy. It was a great trip.
There was a boatload of snow and Estes Park has several really good restaurants. We also found a great Italian restaurant in Elizabeth, Colorado. A little out of the way if you're driving from Springs to Denver but well worth the 20 miles round trip drive.

Nathan has been selected as an Artist in Residence for the National Park Service

Iwas notified, about two weeks ago that I have been selected to serve as an Artist in Residence for the National Park Service in Buffalo National River in Arkansas. The residency will begin around the 25th of March. I will be posting photographs here, from that residency, as well as at discoveredartists.com at photosocial.com and elsewhere. I am looking forward to this opportunity and to making some new photographs in an area that is completely new to me.

An Introduction

I am a fine art photographer residing in Clovis, New Mexico with my bride of 37 years, Virginia, a golden retriever, Calypso (named after Jacques Cousteau's boat, the word means sea goddess) and a border collie named, EmmaJune. I create photographs of the American West and a few other places, mostly in black and white. All of my landscape photographs are created using traditional methods, a large format camera and 4x5 film. I choose to hand print my black and white photographs also, using traditional methods. Up to very recently I hand printed all of my color photographs as well, but recently it has gotten to be difficult to get the color materials suitable for my type of work so some of my color photographs are now created using digital means. However all of my work is still made using 4x5 film originals. The reason I still use traditional methods is quite simple. In my opinion traditional methods give me the best opportunity to create photographs where I maintain control of every part of the creative process. I feel it is important that the DNA of the photographer be on every piece of work that leaves my studio.

Art and the art of photography

First Light, Lone Pine Peak, Mt. Whitney and the Alabama Hills.

This is one of the premier photographic areas in the west, in my opinion, and maybe anywhere else as well. I had the chance to be in the area the first week in December of 2009. A huge snow storm had moved through the day before I got there which was a great stroke of good fortune. This photograph was made just before sunrise. I used a Toyo 45A camera and a 150mm Sinaron-S lens with a dark orange filter and Tri-X black and white film