Richard A. Johnson

Richard A. Johnson (photo credit: Donna M. Hess)

To see more of Richard A. Johnson's work and learn about his techniques, please visit his "Moments With The Land" website.

 

Moments With The Land:

"Digman Falls, PA"

"Wissahickon Falls 2, PA"

"Storm, Johnson Canyon 5, UT"

"Coming Storm, Johnson Canyon 6, UT"

"Rock Formations
and Small Trees, Ridley Creek State Park, PA"

"Cape May Storm 2, NJ"

"Carved in Stone 16, UT"

"Textures in Wood 30"

"Mono Lake 9, CA"

"Upper Brandywine Creek 5, PA"

Photographing the landscape has been a way of life for me and has taught me a great deal about myself and our natural environment and has enriched my imagination and soul. The land, with its mystery, power and beauty, continues to be my classroom and has presented me with the challenge of bringing special moments in time to light.

I believe that our earth is a very spiritual place. Some geographic areas, for me, are more inspiring than others. One such place which I feel exemplifies this is the Southwestern United States. Photographing this area has been and continues to be, an awesome privilege and priceless learning opportunity.

I feel that I am never in control, only the vehicle by which these moments of light have been transferred to film. I believe that we do not own the land; we are its guardians-- keepers of a very special and sacred gift, one that was here long before us. It is with hope, that what remains of our natural environment will remain accessible for future generations.

For over three and a half decades I have maintain a steadfast commitment to the fine art of black & white photography. As an instructor in Photography I have had the invaluable experience of sharing my creative energy, passion and experience with others about this exciting art form.

The images presented before you in this portfolio represents my lifelong passion learning and creative experiences documenting nature and our environment.

From The Shadows Into The Light
“The White Place”

"The White Place 1"

"The White Place 2"

"The White Place 3"

"The White Place 4"

"The White Place 5"

"The White Place 6"

"The White Place 8"

"The White Place 9"

"The White Place 10"

"The White Place 11"

It has been almost four years since I have been able to make a pilgrimage to one of my most favorite places to photograph, New Mexico.

New Mexico is often referred to as the “Land of Enchantment”. Over the years I have come to understand why this phrase has such a strong meaning to me. The light in this part of the country is beyond belief. The formations, canyons, and the views of the landscape are breathtaking. It always feels as though I am traveling back to a time when the earth was very young in its formation.

I had the misfortune of only being at this magnificent place for one day. As a matter of fact it was my last day before returning home. I did something I normally don't like to do when traveling, which was to make one and only one exposure per scene. I chose to do this to increase my yield of images because I only had ten 5 x 7 film holders with me. I must say I was a bit nervous about this idea.

When using sheet film, there is always the possibility that anything could happen; a holder not seated right in the camera, a scratch on the negative, the possibilities of light leaks, or a misjudgment in my exposure compensation for reciprocity failure. Added to this, I was using a different type of camera and technique, a new 5 x 7 pinhole camera. At this point I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.

With these thoughts going on in my head, I tried to put my concerns about technique aside and experience all the beauty around me. I was in awe of the endless structures, striations and sculptures. There were caverns of all types and sizes with amazing amphitheaters that stretched out over the landscape. These fantastically white cliffs seem to rise from the ground resembling skyscrapers, rivaling any found in our large metropolitan cities. In places, they seemed to be over 500 feet tall. The lighting was magnificent, everything appeared to glow and radiate from within the formations themselves.

I tried to get a feel for what I was experiencing around me, to become one with my environment. I knew in my heart and soul that I would have to return to this magnificent place known as “The White Place” -- Plaza Blanca.  “What an experience”.

I am most grateful to Mr. Johnson for his kind permission allowing me to

feature his work here on my blog; as well as supplying the text for his Artist's Statements and Biography.

Richard A. Johnson Biography:

Richard A. Johnson is a landscape photographer and a native of Philadelphia who utilizes panoramic and large format cameras to create his dynamic images. Over the past two decades he has created twenty black & white portfolios, including images from East coast as well as the South and Northwestern United States. Johnson’s works have been featured in the #70 issue of the international publication “Black & White (U.K.)”, “LensWork (U.S.)” and “LensWork (U.S.) Extended CD” in 2007. Richard’s work has been featured in over 60 solo and group exhibitions and in several television programs on photography.

Johnson has studied with acclaimed master landscape photographers such as Dan Burkholder, Howard Bond, Steve Crouch, Huntington Witherill, David Michael Kennedy and Bob Talley. Johnson has also been awarded both an Instructor’s Scholarship (Santa Fe Workshops) and a Portfolio Project grant from Kodak.

Also, he has worked extensively with the Philadelphia Museum of Art on a variety of different projects and initiatives; including teaching educators as part of Museum’s “Learning To Look Workshop”, participating as visiting artist for “Art Speaks” (an art and literacy program for Philadelphia’s 4th graders) and as a member of the Museum’s Teachers Advisory Group to develop K-12 curricula in Art. Johnson was also selected by Museum to be an Artist in Residence for the Art & Summer Teen Program in Photography in 2006.

Richard currently teaches various courses on traditional black & white photography (beginning, intermediate and advance levels), digital black & white and color photography/printing at Delaware County Community College in Media, Pennsylvania. In 2006, he received “The Excellence In Teaching Award” from the College for Adjunct teaching. Johnson also serves as Director of the DCCC Art Gallery, which represents a divers range of work from regional artists and student work.

Richard A. Johnson’s work is part of numerous private and public collections including the Pennsylvania Department of Education, The Free Library of Philadelphia Archives of Pictures & Prints, University of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson University, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Corporation, the Philadelphia Convention Center, and Haverford College’s Comfort Gallery.

Beth Moon

Beth Moon

Beth Moon's Person Web Site

Beth Moon's Gallery Representation:

Gorden/Potts Gallery, San Francisco, California

PH Neutro Fotografia Fine Art, Verona, Italy

Joseph Saxton Gallery of Photography, Canton, Ohio

Verve Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Vision Gallery, Jerusalem, Israel

 

 

 

Portraits of Time:

"Rilke's Bayon"

"Yews on Wlkehurst Path"

"Avenue of Baobabs"

"Majesty"

 

 

Seen But Not Heard:

"No. IX"

 

 

The Kingdom Come:

"Songbirds"

"Light of the Raven"

 

 

The Savage Garden:

"Trumpet Plant"

"Nepenthes Mirabilis"

"Sun Pitcher"

 

 

Island of Dragon's Blood:

"Single Dragon"

"Dragons on Hill's Edge"

"Dragon's Blood Forest at Dawn"

 

Augurs and Soothsayers:

"Polish White"

"Leghorn"

"Moon Fizzle"

I am most grateful to Ms. Moon for her kind permission allowing me to
feature her work here on my blog.

 

Beth Moon talks about her process:

The dawn of the 21st century has seen an unprecedented boom in the industry of photography due in large to the commercial advances of the new technology of electronic imaging and sky rocketing prices in the auction houses. Digital capture is replacing film; silver printing papers are disappearing. Old processes give way to convenience creating the modern desktop darkroom.

So how does the connoisseur avoid becoming part of an industry that is turning fine art into a commodity? I’d like to quote John Stevenson who has over 25 years experience collecting platinum prints;

“It may be that photography has one more dimension still largely unexplored, one more joy. It unfolds when we go beyond the taking of the marvelous image, into the making of the marvelous expression of the image. When we go beyond the artist’s eye, to the artist’s hand.” John coined the following phrase for a show that included platinum prints at his gallery in New York aptly titled, ‘Noble Processes in a Digital Age.’

Some of the prints included in that show were from an ongoing series of ancient tree portraits entitled, ‘Portraits of Time’ that I started over 13 years ago.

To me the answer has always been art. Photographs have the ability to bypass the rhetoric of the written word, going straight to the heart. I believe taking the picture is just the beginning of a long process with each step being equally important.

The aspect of age, some trees being over 4,000 years old, is what has intrigued me. As I photographed these trees and learned more about their history I became aware that a lot of our oldest trees were disappearing at an alarming rate and thought it would be important to put them on film for the sake of posterity.

With platinum printing, a process born of art and science noted for its beautiful luminosity and wide tonal scale, the absence of a binder layer allows very fine crystals of platinum to be embedded into the paper giving it a 3 dimensional appearance. Unrivaled by any other printing process, platinum like gold, is a stable metal. A print can last for thousands of years, emulating the age of the trees that I was photographing.

Each printing method has its own legacy as well as unique visual style. The same negative printed in silver gelatin would translate differently printed in platinum and, therefore, an important decision in choosing the ‘best’ medium to express each style. So it really comes down to a long line of choices.

Printing in platinum (and/or with palladium, its sister element) surely does not turn a poor image into a good one. In fact, quite the opposite, it tends to be more of a weeding out process. Since so much time and resources are spent producing the image, only the best ones seem to rise to the surface. For me this process is a good way to slow down. Each step needs careful contemplation without distractions. A high level of focus and rhythm is very important to the work flow.

This process gives tones that range from cool blacks, neutral grays, to rich sepia browns. The color is controlled with humidity. Before the sensitized paper is exposed with the negative under light, it is put into a humidifying chamber. This is a water proof covered box with a plastic grate that is suspended over water on which the print lies.

I use a medium format camera and still prefer film although I'm backing up with a digital camera most days. Paper choice is key for me. I use Arches Platine, a 100% cotton water color paper with natural deckle edges that has been made by the same mill in France since 1492.

Contact printing basically means you need a negative the size of the image you would like to print. There have been a number of ways to achieve this in the past, but most of the duplicating and reversal films have become obsolete, and paper negatives provide a low quality solution.

Printing methods from the 19th century teamed with technology from the 21st makes the best of both worlds. Negatives printed with high resolution printers seem to be the best option these days. Once a negative can be scanned into a computer it can then be output as a negative printed on transparency material.

In a market that places a high premium on archival work, there is a degree of hesitancy among some collectors when it comes to the longevity of prints produced by digital technology. The struggle increases to balance art, commerce and technique.

Crossing the line from machine made to hand made does necessitate a commitment, and true, the work is labor intensive, but the finished results ensure a satisfaction that comes with the freedom to define many decisions while working with materials that allow you to be true to your vision. And in the end, what unfolds before your eyes is more of an ‘art-object- than an ordinary photograph.


Beth Moon Biography from Professor Boerner's Explorations:

Beth Moon was born in Neenah, Wisconsin. Although she was a fine art major at the University of Wisconsin, she is a self-taught photographer. Her interest in photography was discovered somewhat indirectly over the course of time.

Beth was designing women’s clothing under her own label and needed photographs of her line. Each season, she would hire photographers to photograph her new designs until she decided to do it herself. "I never looked back," she recalls. Beth later sold the company and continued to purse her photographic interests, experimenting with various printing methods. The majority of her work today employs the Mike Ware platinum printing method that she learned while living in England.

Beth returned to the United States seven years ago, and lives with her husband and three children in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Chuck Kimmerle

Chuck Kimmerle

To see more of Chuck Kimmerle's photography, please visit www.chuckkimmerle.com.

"Window Lace"

"Schoolroom Heaters"

"Telephone Pole Shadow"

"Road Hearts"

"Crosses"

"Roadside Marker and Cloud Break"

"Patriotic"

"Mule Deer Antlers"

"Rain Squall"

"Canyon Reflections"

"Strip of Sunlight"

I am most grateful to Mr. Kimmerle for his kind permission to
feature his work here on my blog.

Chuck Kimmerle Biography and Artist's Statement:

Despite knowing little about photography at the time, I knew I was destined to make my living as a photographer when I received my first camera, a Canon Canonet QL17 GIII, as a high school graduation present. The entire process mesmerized me. I was hooked. However, a prior enlistment in the U.S. Army Infantry, which began shortly afterwards, put that dream on the back burner for a few years.

Following my discharge, I enrolled in the Photographic Engineering Technology program at St. Cloud State University, thinking it a solid career backup plan should my dream of being a photographer be unrealized. The technically-focused program provided me with a solid background in photographic science, chemistry, processes and sensitometry.

While at the university, I began working at the school paper, which was followed by a photojournalism position at the St. Cloud Times and, subsequently, jobs at newspapers in Pennsylvania and finally North Dakota, where I was part of a four-person staff named as finalists for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography. In 2000, I left the erratic schedule of photojournalism to the more predictable hours as the staff photographer at the University of North Dakota, where I remained for the next 10 years.

In 2010 I followed my wife, a New York City native, to her new job in the least populated state in the U.S., Wyoming, where I now work as an educational and commercial freelance photographer.

Throughout the years working as a photographer for others, I spent a great deal of my free time doing personal work for myself. These images, which were infinitely more important to me that the work images, were primarily landscapes. However, I have never considered myself a nature photographer. Instead, I tend to gravitate towards those areas which are influenced by both man and nature.

Despite having embraced the digital medium, I consider myself a landscape photographer in the traditional sense of the word. My style is straightforward and formal, with a deep depth-of-field and an unabashed honesty to the subject matter, and is in direct contrast to the contemporary trend of highly conceptualized pictorials. Who says newer is always better?

In the past few years I've had the honor to study with such esteemed photographers as Alan Ross, George DeWolfe, Jean Meile, Jay Dusard, Jack Dykinga and Bruce Barnbaum.

While I am drawn to photograph landscapes, I have never considered myself a nature photographer. Instead, I am drawn to those landscapes which exist at the confluence of, and are influenced by, both nature and man. Within that realm, my primary interests lie in the quiet and reticent agricultural landscapes of the plains, particularly the northern plains.

These sparsely populated areas, unassuming and devoid of grandiosity, are often unappreciated for their quiet and compelling beauty, even by those who live on, and work with, the land.

In keeping with the aesthetic of the land, my images are often straightforward, formal and balanced. As form and texture, above color, are the defining characteristics, I work almost exclusively in black and white.  Despite having fully embraced digital technologies, I consider myself a landscape photograper in the traditional sense of the word, with deep depth-of-field and and honest approach to my subjects. And, while having almost limitless control over my images I, as a general rule, let pixels lie where they have fallen, and limit my image enhancements to those available in the traditional darkroom.

It is my hope that these images will elevate awareness and appreciation for those landscapes which, while lacking obvious grand elements, offer a quiet, yet compelling, beauty.