During the virus, I have naturally shifted most 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 emerging 2021 Workshop Schedule is being modified to accommodate the virus shutdown and unlikely ability to gather indoors. 

Some plans are being now made on the assumption that the vaccine will be available later this year and will then become a prerequisite for the class.

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 early 2021 Workshop Schedule includes one of my favorites, the Fine Art Digital Printing class as a virtual lecture, multi-session follow-up February 6-7, 2021. I will also continue with my Project Sessions With a New Eye: The Digital National Parks Project February 17, 2021.

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. Hopefully you can visit soon by appointment, socially distanced, masked and limited to two people. I hope to be able to open the galleries to general visitation in the not too distant future so you can see what is on display at Stephen Johnson Photography.

Small wonders still abound. The wonder of weather and wildlife. The wonder of love when my son said they were expecting babies. The wonder of colorful birds flitting about my front yard.

I do find birds irresistible to photograph. I can’t say I often get wonderful photographs, but I get to see them so much better in photographs than their rapidly moving real world movement allows. Photographs have often brought the benefit of a more leisurely look at something than real world time allows. It is one of photography’s great seductions, to hold light captures in a form we can revisit, re-experience our amazement, confirm our memories and study for greater comprehension. It is peculiar that photographs often make clear how much we miss by only looking, even looking intensely. Time becomes a real factor. Too much happens too fast. A single frame can freeze a moment passing too quickly to see.

Birds with wings expanded can be visually amazing. Even after a lifetime of watching birds, their flight still seems magical. I hope such wonder is never displaced by my knowledge that birds fly. Flight should always remain a wonder.

2020 began with no sense of a new project being undertaken, nor of cosmic events that would include a comet and a planetary confluence. I had no real notion of the influences a new camera from Canon would have on my work. There was no anticipation of the visuals and constrained movement wildfires would bring. Drone work and infrared photography made reappearances in unanticipated ways.

Clearly, neither the dread nor the upswings were seen, which is normal life, without visions of the future.

But the real world brought new stories. Plans were scrapped and reinvented as the year passed. Improvisation became the norm as human contact became mostly virtual. 2020 was a strange time.

The looking back this Newsletter has prompted has been good for me. The more than 31,000 images discouraged seeing mostly darkness, which simply would not have been true. For me, there was so much light keeping this darkness at bay that the real year is a much different story.

Of course any pondering of the year can easily collapse into sorrow at the huge losses of so many to the virus, all of their stories and loved ones left behind. That sorrow needs to be felt, empathized with, kept in mind. But it must not conquer our hearts.

The year started with quite an adventure, a journey with my good friend Ed Stone to Nashville and Memphis Tennessee, to Muscle Shoals and Huntsville Alabama.

I was lecturing for Canon at Imaging USA in Nashville, which gave the whole trip its impetus, but soon evolved into a music and space adventure. My trips almost always evolve into much more than I initially imagine. I treasure those evolutions.

I try to live life fully, and I am very fortunate to have largely done that. Still, I am often surprised by what I have done within these annual markers of time. I’ve been assuming 2020 would feel emptier because so much travel plans and potential was cut-off by the pandemic. But in looking back, as usual, there was far more squeezed in than a casual recollection would have suggested. I was pleased this newsletter gave me that incentive to look.

Nashville

Our first foray into Nashville was a quick look at Music Row, then on to a performance at the Ryman Auditorium. It was a great introduction to the historic downtown and music traditions I had grown up with far away in California’s Central Valley..

The Ryman show was a variety of performers including Alan Jackson, Riders in the Sky, Ricky Skaggs, and Vince Gill. I kept imagining all of the people that had stood on that stage and sang, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, even Neil Young, and so many legends of Country Music.

After the show, I remember wandering some more, taking in the neon signs along Broadway and a few bar performances. It was a great night, with a little photography mixed in.

I had originally thought of heading east, toward the Great Smokey Mountains, but we had started on a musical journey and although in the opposite direction. Memphis called.

Driving through hill country on our way to Memphis, we came across Loretta Lynn’s Kitchen Restaurant, Museum, Gift shop in Hurricane Mills. We had to stop. A perfectly fine breakfast followed, surrounded by commemorative paintings, dioramas and other memorabilia.

Memphis

After starting our musical journey in Nashville, it became irresistible to go to Memphis and Sun Studios.

We took a great tour through the still operating Sun Studios where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison all got their start, all following their dreams. Lingering, we soaked up all of the ambiance we could, and took a few snapshots along the way.

Of course Memphis is much more than Sun Studios, we spent time walking Beale Street, went in a few clubs and listened to some great music. My friend Ed wanted to go to Elvis’ home Graceland, so we did, though skipping the tour.

Memphis is right on the Mississippi River which pulled us down to the waterfront, across its bridges and exploring a misty morning on the river.

With our obvious delight on the Sun Studios tour, our guide suggested we would likely enjoy a visit to Muscle Shoals Recording Studio.

Muscle Shoals

How could we be standing in Sun Studios in Memphis and not think go of going to Muscle Shoals Recording Studios? So the trip enlarged and deepened.

The route took us down through a NE tip of Mississippi and rural north Alabama to Sheffield and an unassuming rectangular stand-alone building that had been, and was once again, Muscle Shoals Recording Studio.

So many influential albums were recorded in those rooms, from Boz Scaggs debut, to parts of the Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers, to Leon Russell’s Carney. It was very special to be there. We spent hours, and I even got to play the piano, supposedly the very same one used on some of those recordings.

Huntsville

Any child of the Space program knows of Huntsville Alabama. It is where the Saturn V was developed and built. It was only a bit of an extension of our loop back up to Nashville for my photo talk. My friend, former Saturn V engineer Eugene Worley, couldn’t get together as I hoped, but we had great visit to the US Space and Rocket Center, complete with a real Saturn V, a centrifuge 3G ride and a chat with one of the designers of the Lunar Rover.

Death Valley

My annual winter visit to Death Valley took me to many of my favorite places like the Dunes at Stove Pipe Wells and Titus Canyon.

Seeing some Bighorn Sheep in Titus Canyon was a real highlight for me. Initially we saw them up on a ridgeline, watched as they came down into the canyon, then walking about 20 feet in front of us, lingering just opposite our stopped cars.

Yosemite in Winter

A February excursion to Yosemite with some photo friends got me back to some places and experiences I do love. I can never really get enough of Yosemite and usually visit a few times a year. Not this year though, so looking back on fall of 2019 and winter of 2020 had to suffice this year.

I kept thinking I would get up to the park, and the high Sierra, see that summer starry nights from 10,000 feet, but the forest fires then held me at bay. There were a few in-between times I could have gone, if I had only know what was to come.

Cosmos

Comet Neowise in August and the confluence of Jupiter and Saturn in December created cosmic viewing opportunities.

Although a long lens is no substitute for a telescope with a camera mounted and a clock drive, I did have fun recording Comet Neowise and a hint of Saturn’s Rings with Jupiter’s Moons.

The new Canon R5 helped with its cleaner high ISO, a borrowed Canon 600mm, then the new RF600mm provides the reach. Exposures were a balance between the movement of the Earth’s rotation and high ISO. The magnification of the 600mm lens of course made Earth rotation even more pronounced requiring a faster shutter speed.

On the Jupiter/Saturn set, the brightness differences in Jupiter, it’s moons and Saturn were put together from at least three different exposures.

One of my normal activities during the pandemic was to make sure I get out to the ocean just half mile from my house. I often squeeze such a visit in at the end of the day, the coming sunset being the kicker to make sure I get out. I have been surprised how many of the resulting photographs have engaged me. I would have thought they would be far more repetitive and less diverse than has turned out to be the case.

My normal practice is to do a Facebook post, just to the get the experience out there. It has been nice to have so many people encouraging the posts, even as I remain a bit skeptical of so many sunsets.

Featured Print Deal and No Gallery Print Sale

This month’s Featured Print offers another original print for $195.

Our 40% Off Sale Original Signed Prints continues. 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.

Life Form Exhibition

Life Form opened in the Main Gallery at Stephen Johnson Photography in July 2018. The show has been extended into 2021. 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 after the virus. 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.

Next Virtual Workshop

Next Virtual Lecture

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 after the virus 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.

Workshop Testimonials

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 when you can 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.

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

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

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

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

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

A collection of photographs in and around Pacifica California. Include a trail map.

• 74 pages

• 11x17 wire-bound book for full lay-flat opening and enjoyment

• 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.

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

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