ARTIST’S STATEMENT
(Prepared for Cabrillo Exhibition (August 2005 - September 2005)
(Page 1 of 3)
My first experience with photography was as a senior at the University of Redlands when I traveled to Europe to study at the university’s Salzburg campus with a used Kodak Retina 35mm camera. My idea was to take pictures of the “places” of European history which I was studying under the guidance of Dr. Henry Ditmar, the greatest teacher I have ever known, and a legend at Redlands. I tagged along with John Oliver, a fellow student who knew about f stops, shutter speeds, and focal range, as we visited the cities, cathedrals, museums, and historical edifices that marked the origins of western civilization. I brought back Kodak processed slides of this adventure, showed them to students and friends from time to time, but mostly they ended up in boxes which I keep promising myself I will revisit.
Later, I graduated to a Nikon 35mm single lens reflex camera when I began to travel to the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, started backpacking, and wanted a better way to remember the experience than hauling out dead trout. I remember comparing the 13,000 to 14,000 foot tall spires of the eastern Sierra as they dropped to alpine lakes to those of the cathedrals of Europe. I began to think that if there is a god s/he would live in the mountains; and that the best evidence of the existence of god was in the extraordinary creations of the landscapes to which I was beginning to pay special attention. I took photographs and sent them to friends and relatives at Christmas and thought them some of the best gifts I ever gave. For a while I got to live in the eastern Sierra, and owned a home, appropriately enough, at Tom’s Place.
I first began to dream about becoming a landscape photographer during my sojourn in the eastern Sierra. However, the need to earn an income was pressing and I didn’t feel I had the luxury of taking a chance on making a living out of a hobby I loved. So I put away the camera for the most part and went back to my “real job” in public education. As a teacher, unlike my experience as an administrator, I learned to semi-cope with the mind numbing bureaucracy and twists and turns of political correctness, while mostly enjoying the students and subject matters I taught.
I got out of the “making a living career” experience reasonably healthy, with most of my wits, and thanks to my inherited frugality, some economic freedom. I knew that my “next career” would have something to do with discovering and working on the best part of me as a human being. I had with some intention put myself on the spot because I could pretty much do what I wanted.