Median Tree. Seaside, California.

Just a reminder that photo submissions for Managed Landscapes at the Vermont Photo Space Gallery are closing soon.

The touch of man on the natural landscape is all around us. From shimmering cityscapes and rural farms to strip mines and garbage dumps. Let’s see images that show the touch of man, light or heavy, on the earth around us.

I’m the sole juror for this show and look forward to seeing interesting work.

Cut Across Trail at Fault Wash. Anza Borrego State Park. Calif

This summer I have been asked to juror Managed Landscapes at the Vermont Photo Space Gallery:

The touch of man on the natural landscape is all around us. From shimmering cityscapes and rural farms to strip mines and garbage dumps. Let’s see images that show the touch of man, light or heavy, on the earth around us.

I look forward to seeing interesting work.

Visit Vermont Photo Space Gallery for more information on this photo competition.

Quick Change the Channel. ©Kenneth J. Botto Photography Trust.

The recent testimony by Lamar McKay, Chairman and President of BP America, brought to mind Ken Botto.

In his testimony, Mr. McKay says, “Tragic and unforeseen as this accident was, we must not lose sight of why BP and other energy companies are operating in the offshore, including the Gulf of Mexico.”  We all benefit from motorized transportation, so we know why he’s there.  But “unforeseen”?  Of course not.  BP made an economic calculations not to cover the eventuality that is turning out to be the worst oil spill in history.  Dr. Joseph Romm writes about it on Climate Progress.

This brought to mind the line coming out of the Bush Administration after 9/11 that no one could have foreseen airplanes being flown into buildings.  Of course, US intelligence had been grappling with the prospect of terrorists and airplanes for at least five years.  Here’s just one example.  The CIA has entertained the idea since the 1970′s.

Oh, and then there was Ken Botto, a photographer in Bolinas who came up with the idea in 1984 as part of his series on Barbie and Robots.  The picture is aptly titled “Quick Change the Channel.”

San Francisco 1851

San Francisco 1851

About ten years ago I stitched together a seven-panel daguerreotype of San Francisco taken in 1851 and converted it to a Quicktime VR panorama.  On this 104th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake, I reprise it here.  Here’s your chance to stand at First and Howard streets 159 years ago, at the onset of the Gold Rush.

For today’s version, visit Google here.

This wonderful 7 minute film just came across my desk.  It’s a 35mm film of San Francisco’s Market Street shot four days before the 1906 earthquake from the front of a cable car.  Thanks to David Kiehn of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum for dating the work.  It is an astounding step back in time.

A longer 13 minute version can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKRbTF5afSE&feature=fvw .

Here’s an interesting article from the Observer about the release of previously classified spy satellite photographs by the Obama administration.  This photography reveals striking space views of polar ice cap melting.  Read the artice here.

Impromptu Boundary

After the loss of his studio and archives to bankruptcy, Carleton Watkins began work on his New Series, where upon he re-photographed the West and rebuilt and expanded his photographic archive. A commission by the Hearst Mining Company brought him to Virginia City, Nevada. Watkins also photographed mining operations near Markleeville, California and Carson City, Nevada, railroad and water projects near Donner Summit, and hydraulic mining operations further west in California’s Gold Country.

While passing through Lake Tahoe he would take pictures of the resorts, as well as general lake views. He would also take portraits for the lumberjacks employed in the Tahoe Basin logging timber for the mines of the Comstock Lode.

Included in Lake Tahoe: A Fragile Beauty, alongside the Twain essays are a selection of Watkins New Series Tahoe photographs provided by the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology on the UC Berkeley campus. We only had space for a small number of images in Lake Tahoe: A Fragile Beauty, yet Phoebe Hearst’s collection of 140 Watkins photographs are the basis for the museum’s photography collection. I strongly encourage readers to visit the Phoebe Hearst Museum and the Online Archive of California to see more of Watkins’ photography from the area. As one fascinated by how the land speaks to our relationship with nature and the environment, I find the photography of Virginia City and Markleeville particularly engaging.

In general, I find Watkins’ work captivating. During the late-19th Century, his photography gave eastern audiences important views of a western landscape they were only able to read about, leading, ultimately, to the founding of Yosemite and other national parks. Today, these photographs offer another important first glimpse – for us. Watkins allows us to look back upon the land, exactly at the arrival of our industrial culture. The Gold Rush was the first human migration in history blessed so. It was a time not so long ago.

Silver Lake. Carson Pass. California.

If you missed Extreme Ice on NOVA, it’s worth checking out on their website.  This is an interesting use of still photography to tell a larger story, in this instance glacial retreat and global warming.

In stark contrast to this message, is the denying of the validity of global warming, as discussed here in the New York Times.  One has to wonder about their motives.  As a conservative Republican friend of mine says, “Even if you don’t believe in global warming, environmental concerns are going to create a lot of jobs and will be central to the country’s competitiveness.

For a fascinating read on the Arctic, pick up Barry Lopez’s “Artic Dreams.”  In this National Book award winner, Lopez covers the varied dimensions of the Arctic, including geography, wildlife, and  human occupation and exploration.  You’ll never look at ice the same after reading this book.  A review in the Guardian captures the book’s spirit. For more on Barry Lopez, visit http://www.barrylopez.com/ .

Winter Dawn. Tahoe Keys. Lake Tahoe, California.

Every time I set up the camera, my goal is to create a photograph worthy of a patron’s wall.  To attract an audience the work must first be beautiful.  To persevere, it must be insightful and create awareness. Photographing in the large format tradition with normal perspective lenses subtly conveys the historical  perspective.  It was the view of many early 19th Century photographers that wide angle lenses distorted reality.  To paraphrase Michael Carey Lea in his Manual of Photography from 1871, gardens should not appear as parks.

Lake Tahoe: A Fragile Beauty begins with the beautiful and often subdued images of land, light, and shape.  So much of our affection for Tahoe comes from a sense of awe and wonder upon seeing its shores.  Slowly the imagery shifts toward, what I term, the intersecting landscape.  To quote the Forward: “While Tahoe’s sublime vistas always capture me, it is upon closer contemplation that I inevitably find myself at those intersecting landscapes, those brought on by our industriousness, dreams, and ambitions.”

Parking Lot. Vikingsholm. Emerald Bay State Park. Lake Tahoe. Calif

It is a common fiction that the photograph is a neutral witness.  Yet, every author has a bias which will find its way into the work.  As such, my book of contemporary landscape photography, Lake Tahoe: A Fragile Beauty, is my story.  Often discounted is the photographer’s palette, composed of such tools as lighting, camera position, camera format, lens selection, film type, and exposure, not to mention the many variables controlled after capture, during image processing and printing.  Less tangible is the photographer’s worldview, psychology, and culture.  More useful to the viewer than an explanation of how I take a photograph, may be a consideration of those artists to whom I have found inspiration.

In general, I find my work influenced by the historical and I see my photography as a small step in a larger continuum.  More specifically, Lake Tahoe: A Fragile Beauty builds upon a number of artists.  Eugene Atget, an early French photographer, made “documents for artists,” or, rather, reference photographs primarily for painters.  His approach to photography was that of a utilitarian.  I find a fresh, unencumbered naiveté in his work, an artist practiced with a new technology.  Carleton Watkins is another historical photographer whose work I admire.  As part of the United States westward migration, his work has an element of reportage, where he describes the West to eastern audiences.  When I first picked up a camera, like many, I was inspired by Ansel Adams.  Adams’ approach was a conscious departure from those before.  Through his mastery of photographic technique, he was able to stretch the medium – manipulating film, exposure, and development to precisely achieve a desired result.  I also frequently find inspiration in artists outside of photography.  One such example is painter Mark Rothko, whose use of the color field draws my eye.  Richard Misrach’s open skies carry this style into photography.  Finally, I would like to acknowledge Larry Sultan, whom I consider a cultural anthropologist.  Sultan can take a widely familiar subject, such as that of parents, and through the images of his parents we come to better understand our own parents, families, and our aging culture.

Outwardly, I worked with a large-format camera and middle-distance lenses to approximate the historical perspective of Atget and Watkins.  On a subtle level this makes a visual connection between past and present.  Inwardly, I approach every subject as if it is posing for both a present and future audience.  What is the story behind this small slice of the landscape?  What am I choosing to include and what do I discard?  What is this present moment?  Can I be the unbiased, empty witness?