Stephen Johnson Photography News
August 2020
Bioluminescent Surf. looking toward San Francisco. 2020. Two frame stitch, 3 second exposure, f 1.2 ISO2500. Canon EOS R5.
Upcoming Workshop:
Masterful Fine Art Digital Printing Virtual Workshop
September 19-20, 2020
No Gallery Print Sale
40% off all prints during shutdown
Prelude: As the pandemic marches on, please consider everyone’s safety, wear masks, socially distance and build virtual communities to help us all through this process. PLEASE Register to vote.
Welcome to the August 2020 Edition of the Stephen Johnson Photography Newsletter.
Projects are growing, time seems out of context, and virtual friends feel lucky to have when actual human friends in the flesh are rare. The Neowise Comet and bioluminescent surf has kept me Earth connected and steadier seeing such wonders. Be safe, Use your cameras!
My 40% off print sale continues, and my virtual lectures and mentoring, are expanding. The Virtual Zoom connections help with the isolation and have provided a forum for online teaching. Pushing forward.
— Steve
This month's View From Here column explores art with political context, the comet and glowing surf. Our new Virtual Classes are continuing to broaden with new offeriengs. I hope you find the column interesting and will consider sending me some comments. As these Newsletters can cover many subjects, let me know of topics you would like to see addressed.
Workshops are all postponed, or moving to virtual where possible. All workshops currently scheduled are subject to necessary corona virus spread prevention date changes.
FEATURED PRINT August 2020
Tree. Japanese Tea Garden. Golden Gate Park. 2020.. Canon EOS R5.
Tree. Japanese Tea Garden. Golden Gate Park. 2020.
Canon EOS 5DSr. EF24-105mm f/4L IS II USM lens
A wander the Japanese Garden after it’s months long closure, found me studying this multi-truncked tree with it graceful rise. It was a black and white photograph in my mind from the moment it was made.
We're offering a 9.5x14 inch print of the photograph for $195, matted to 16x20 inch board. This print at this price is offered through August 31. We'll be taking orders until then, and shipping them out by September 15.
LATEST NEWS:
At the start of the shutdown, and closed gallery, I started a big print sale reducing prices to what I would normally earn, 40% off my normal prices. This sale continues through the shutdown and has been a good contribution to my business continuing and the keeping the studio. Thanks to all of you who taken advantage the sale and your words of appreciation on having the prints in your hands.
from the Exquisite Earth Opening video. 2011.
Naturally I am shifting all of my education programs to online experiences. This is frustrating and rewarding. The new virtual experiences are certainly stretching out my geographical reach. I am certainly excited by our new Virtual Classes Program.
My 2020 Workshop Schedule has been modified to accommodate the virus shutdown and unlikely ability to gather even later in the year. I remain committed to offering great courses whether in person or virtually. See what a great experience students have had on my Workshops by exploring Workshop Testimonials.
The 2020 Workshop Schedule includes one of my favorites, the now virtual Fine Art Printing class September 19-20. We are doing innovative online one-to one instruction supplementing the class time and mailing prints for critiques. I’m starting virtual lectures as well, the next being 50 Years of Space Photography on August 19th., the anniversary of the invention of photography. See what a great experience students have had on Steve's Workshops by exploring Workshop Testimonials.
Other Worldly is up in our galleries having joined the new Space Exhibit with the Life Form Exhibition last summer. I hope to be able to open the galleries in the not too distant future so you can see what is on display at Stephen Johnson Photography.
Upcoming Events & Workshops
THE VIEW FROM HERE
by Stephen Johnson
Moving Forward in Dark Times
“In such an ugly time, the true protest is beauty.” Singer, songwriter Phil Ochs, liner notes Pleasures of the Harbor, 1968.
I think of myself as a landscape photographer, seeking beauty. I have long sought to help the conservation movement with those photographs. But for even longer, I have been committed to social justice, non-violence (to other humans and to animals) and to living up to the promises of both freedom and equality from our nation’s birth. In our relationship to land, we are clearly stewards of our own impact on the planet, and need to act like it. These broad concerns predated my involvement in photography and do not always lend themselves to the medium.
I’ve been involved in advocating for causes all of my adult life, by whatever non-violent and honest means I can conjure up. Opposing the war in Vietnam, working for environmental responsibility, for candidates here and there, social justice in various ways. From helping the United Fram Workers, going to so many demonstrations starting at 15, work for environmental causes like saving Mono Lake, issues raised by agriculture in California’s Great Central Valley, advocating for the National Parks, or now continuing to serve on the board of the Pacifica Land Trust, I have always needed to feel like I am tying to make a difference.
Political art is often bad. Most art that I’ve made that has political context is by serendipity, the chance sightings of telling scenes. Occasionally I have made political commentary through my art, particularly since Photoshop first became available, making for early play with constructed scenes and digital collage. I have never gathered that work together, but the times suggest that featuring some of that work now might be valuable to do. Some are early-on video capture and early scanner captures, some are completely straight photographs of telling sights.
Jefferson Davis Memorial with Civiil War photograph by Alexander Gardner. Richmond, VA and Antietam, MD.. 2018 and 1863.
It is amazing how often visual metaphor is just sitting there, waiting to be recorded.
Supreme Court Cloaked. Washington DC. 2013.
Dark Skies over Capitol.. 2018.
US Capitol through Trees. 2016.
Evidence of the political choices we make is abundant on the land.
Developing Industrial Park on farmland. from “The Great Central Valley Project.” 1984. 4x5 Kodak Vericolor film.
Alaska Oil Pipeline. 1988. 35mm Kodak Ektachrome film. Digitized with Canon EOS 5DSr
If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind, they are called vandals; if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God, they are called developers. Joseph Wood Krutch (lifted from my friend Jake Sigg’s July 31 Nature News)
Pesticide Cans. Crop-Dusting Aristrip. Newman, CA. 1984. from “The Great Central Valley Project.” 1984. 120mm Kodak Vericolor film.
Sometimes that involves video.
Other times, a construct is needed.
Resurrection. 1991.
So many political rallies and peace marches over the years…
Bernie Sanders Rally. Palo Alto, CA 2016.
Anti-Trump Rally. San Francisco, CA. 2017.
Market Street Truth. Anti-Trump Rally. San Francisco, CA. 2017.
Pro Science Rally. San Francisco. 2017.
More often than not, my reactions to what I see gives me pause to consider the implications and context. Sometimes, studying a scene, words drift through my head. There may be no longterm association between those words and photographs.
Strybing Arboretum, Golden Gate Park: It seems much of what we create in the human world is mimicking what the natural world already contains, the very core of our real world experience. As human history evolves, we make more and more of this imitation, and it seems live less and less of the real earth experience. It is perplexing. We desperately need to reconnect, we are getting so lost as a species. Our souls need this Earth for far more than what we can consume of it.
We need the Earth’s nurture.
Strybing Arboretum. Golden Gate Park.. 2020.
The leaves above somehow inspired the words above the photograph.
Recently at Stephen Johnson Photography
Bioluminescence
Word came via a friend the there was a bioluminescent glow in the Santa Cruz surf, about 70 miles down the coast. I had hopes of seeing it here in my beachside town of Pacifica. So I tried one of my favorite overlooks at the north end of town, and sure enough, there it was, a series of other worldly blue-green capped waves rolling into shore.
It wasn’t bright, and became immediately clear that a balance of high ISO, very wide aperture and extended exposure would be needed. I tried very high ISO settings, up to 51,000, but ultimately settled on a modest ISO 1600 with a few seconds of exposure. Although this allowed the surf to blur, it gave a smooth continuous tone rendition that seems very in keeping with the subject. I also made sure I had long-exposure noise reduction turned on to automatically create a dark frame, that is then subtracted from my exposure.
I’ve been looking between 10pm and 12 midnight and found a 3 second exposure built-up a nice amount of light, so like a astrophotography with a telescope, it makes the phenomena more visible. In fact, the live view on the R5 mirrorless camera gave me a boosted view of the scene, providing great information on when to trip the shutter.
I felt lucky to see the bioluminescent glow, and over a few nights developed a good method for photographing it. Walking out on the trail near midnight was a little spooky, being way down a mountainside by myself, but it was fine
This surf glow is another magical example of our precious earth's wonders. I remember a glowing boat wake between islands at night in the Galapagos, stars filling the sky, touching the horizon, and the eerie long slow curve of bluish green wake glow stretching to that same horizon. I will never forget the sight.
Comet Neowise
I have done a bit of comet chasing this last month. Comet Neowise has been a surprise, and was quite beautiful hanging in the sky. My first view at 5am looking north from the Skyline Ridge was heart moving. I’ve seen it a few times since, made closer photographs with longer lenses, but the pre-dawn view on July 12 remains very special to me.
Comet Neowise. July 15, 2020, 10:18pm. Canon EOS R. EF400mm f/5.6L USM.
Subsequent evening views were with difference cameras and different weather, but continued to be amazing to see even as it moved further from Earth and dimmed.
Comet Neowise. July 22, 2020, 10pm. Canon EOS R5 EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM..
Comet Neowise. July 12, 2020, 4:51 am. Canon ES 5DSr. EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM. .
Trees and Fog on Skyline. 2020. Canon EOS 5DSr.
Waiting for darkness and the comet on the crest of the Coastal Range, the fog kept drifting in and out. The fog dashed our hopes of seeing the comet, and delighted us with its delicate beauty. And we did get to see the comet too.
No Gallery Print Sale
40% Off Original Signed Prints. Back in April, virus income shifting and our closed gallery suggested we offer a big print sale. Thanks to those of you who have taken advantage of the offer. Prices have been reduced to what would normally be earned from a gallery sale, 40% off normal prices. This sale is planned to only last through the California shutdown while our gallery and others are closed.
Virtual Experiences
I have now added Virtual Classes and Lectures to the schedule. Critiques are now virtual. In fact, as you might imagine, all teaching is virtual at the moment. To flush that out, here is a list of the virtual educational opportunities we are offering.
Virtual Classes and Lectures. A series of new online live classes on various topics with limited space and Q&A sessions.
50 Years of Space Photography Virtual Lecture. August 19, 2020 6pm to 7:30pm
Virtual Critiques. show or observe.
Thursday, August 20, 2020. 5:00 PM 7:30 PM
On the Dunes. Ocean Beach. San Francisco. 2020 Photo by Holly Grant.
Come Visit the Exhibitions (after the shutdown)
Check out my new 50 years of Space Photography Exhibition now joined with my Life Form Exhibition as Other Worldly for a mind-blowing journey from the living world close-up to the depths of space.
Although the gallery is currently closed for the corona virus shutdown, hopefully we can reopen before too long. Come see the shows when you can. Space and awesome life! A dive into cosmic extremes.
The 50 Years of Space Photography Gallery with the five extra Apollo 11 prints.
In front of the Apollo 14 Panoramic, 3rd. Graders from Ocean Shore School in Pacifica visiting the Space Exhibit. 2019. Photo by Sheila Gamble.
Class Visits
When school is back in session, we will continue to welcome teachers bringing their classes by, kids and college students. The kid’s reactions have been inspiring to me, both for the space exhibition and Life Form.
Workshops Coming Up
The next class we hope to hold is our Black and White Printing class which is going virtual with an in-person session after the virus. The popular Flora and Form Workshop and the next Mastering Fine Art Digital Editing and Printing class are both scheduled for September. All are open for enrollment now but subject to virus driven changes. We are exploring some virtual classes.
Please consider joining us on one of our upcoming workshops. Enrollment is the key to continuing to offer these classes and keep the studio running. We hope to hear from you.
I’ve always been drawn to historical photographs and maps. I’ve been collecting 19th century books, engravings and now making scans of photos and maps. Printed on just the right paper and sheen, the reproductions are often vey special in their own right. So I’ve decided to make some of these prints available as I print them and discover more.
The first few are from the San Francisco Bay Area, local to my home in Pacifica, We’ll make them both available as 8x10 ($35-$45) and 11x14 ($75-$85) with larger sizes available for quote. The Gallery of current offerings where you can place orders can be found here.
Life Form Exhibition
Life Form opened in the Main Gallery at Stephen Johnson Photography in July 2018. The show has been extended into 2020. We have had many visitors come by the gallery since the opening. Many have then joined workshops and certainly helped build community. Please come see the show. Pass the word.
Seeking Good Venues for Life Form
We are seeking good venues to show the Life Form Series. The series is now available for museum and gallery exhibition.
Life Form Announcement. 2018
Don't forget to Check out our next workshops
Next Studio Workshop
Next Field Workshop
San Gregorio Valley. Highway One Workshop..
The Studio, Scholarships and Mentoring
As part of our ongoing commitment to photographic education, there is one student scholarship spot in many of our classes. Please pass the word along.
For discounted time studying with Steve, keep in mind our Mentoring Program.
With all of our busy schedules and limited budgets, destination workshops or classes become a challenge, but many of you still have questions you need answered, or feedback on some new work. We want to remind you of our Virtual Online Consulting Program. This service allows all of you out there around the globe to consult online live with Steve on technical, aesthetic and workflow issues using Skype and your webcam.
Our Essays and Tutorials from the past couple of years can now be found on our Newsletter Archive and some on Google Blogger.
We hope you can come by the gallery and see the original prints in the new Life Form Gallery and its new Life Form Portfolio, the Exquisite Earth exhibition with its accompanying very special Exquisite Earth Portfolio 1. We invite you to join us on a workshop, rent lab space, or just say hello and let us know what you are up to photographically and what you might like to see us offer. We value your input.
Print Mentor Program
Many of my mentoring students have wanted help with their printing, often to make sure they can produce a specific print. Consequently, I am starting a Print Mentoring Program that sets up a 2 hour time slot and the production of a finished print, all with the tutorial video of how we did it together. Prints can be up to 16x20 and on either Hahnemühle Museum Etching or Photo Rag Pearl paper. Fee is $500. Email for more information and to set up times.
Free and For Sale
Free Stuff (a few items still left)
I have been printing out nice copies of the Constitution and Bill of Rights on rich cotton paper. You are welcome to a copy if you come by the gallery.
Additionally, I rescued a few Beseler Enlargers, a 23c and 4x5, hoping to find good homes for them. Make an offer.
Equipment for Sale
None at this time.
New Space Photography Products
Apollo 11 Collectors Portfolio
A suite of photographs from Apollo 11. 12 pigment inkjet prints on letter-sized paper selected, edited and printed by photographer Stephen Johnson, in a portfolio box. The set includes a Mission Summary book, original US Postal Stamp commemorating the Mission, the Mission patch and a schematic of the Lunar Module. $250
Apollo 11 Collectors Portfolio examples.
50 Years of Space Photography Exhibition Catalog
The Exhibtion catalog featuring photograhs from Planetary probes, the Hublle Space Telescope, Lunar explorations, the Apollo program and Space Shuttle/Space Station images. Includes an exploration of the imaging technologies emplyed by the spacecraft.
68 pages, 8.5x11 inches
Other Worldly Exhibition Catalog.
Apollo 11 Photography Book
A 96 page 8.5x11 inch collection of Apollo 11 photographs from launch to recovery including contact sheets for every surface Hasselblad photograph.
It’s the collection I wish I could have bought, so I made it.
-96 pages
-7 sections, Lunar Photo Equipment, Preparation, On the Way, Lunar Orbit, Tranquility Base, Heading Home, Relics
-Film Magazine proofs
Life Form Folio
The Life Form Folio
When we premiered the Life Form Exhibition, I wanted to have a collectible item and record of the show prior to the full book I plan. So, now available is the 36 page 11x17 wire bound book, 5 years of work from 2013 to 2018 exploring these magnificent lives.
Photographs from 2013-2018
36 pages
11x17 wire-bound book
$40
Exquisite Earth Exhibition Catalog
Page 41
page 13
The Exquisite Earth Exhibition Catalog
As I've been on a roll on fixing bodies of work into POD books, I decided before the Exquisite Earth show could come down for new upcoming show, I wanted to create a printed record. So, now available is the 56 page 11x17 wire bound book, 5 years of work from 2005 to 2010 traveling this wondrous planet.
Photographs from 2005-2010
56 pages
11x17 wire-bound book
$40
Pacifica Book
Page 27
Page 7
A collection of photographs in and around Pacifica California. Include a trail map.
74 pages
11x17 wire-bound book
Pacifica Trail Map
32 years in Pacifica
10 years of calendars
$50
Pacifica Trail Map by Pease Maps special to the Pacifica Land Trust.
11" x 17" folded
$10 (free shipping) proceeds go the Pacifica Land Trust a non-profit 501c3.
Gift Certificates for Prints and Workshops!
Emailed or shipped with beautiful gift note card.
Life Form Note cards
5x7 inches (sold-out, on backorder)
$25
12 image Note card set with envelopes featuring photographs from Steve's new Life Form work.
Printed by Steve in his studio in very limited numbers on a color laser digital press
National Park Note cards
National Park Color Note Card Set
Stephen Johnson
12 cards/envelopes $20 set
From "With a New Eye" Beautiful 300 line screen offset reproductions with envelopes in clear box. A great gift.
NEWSLETTER ADMINISTRATION
We've sent you this newsletter because, at some point, you told us you were interested in hearing from us.
If you'd like to unsubscribe, change your email address, or give us comments about the newsletter, please send a note to lists@sjphoto.com.
After a few years of working intensely on my Urban Eden Golden Gate Park project, I am excited to offer a two-day photographic workshop in this complex and beautiful landscape. Now 150 years old, this park symbolizes parkland engineering and the earth itself taking its own course of life and fecundity. The park will be explored over two days with a blend of photographic opportunity, assistance, and my growing knowledge of its own back woods. This springtime weekday workshop will avoid some of the weekend crowds.