Stephen Johnson Photography News

July 2026

Hello to my subscribers and guest readers. Thanks for visiting this July 2026 newsletter.

This month's View From Here column explores my most recent journey, this time to the east coast from Rochester to Three Mile Island, thru Washington DC, Richmond VA and South Carolina.

A few of the stories and photographs I made along the way are featured in this Newsletter. The trip was about friends, first hand views of things I had not seen, some in the news, some from long ago.

My photographs are featured in a new show opening at the Pacifica Center for the Arts Sanchez Galleries “Balancing Act, at the waters edge” July 10-August 9. with an Opening Reception 7 to 9pm Friday July 10. This exhibition furthers the goal of the study to engage the community to identify opportunities and envision locations along Pacifica’s six miles of shoreline to implement Nature-Based Solutions that would restore natural habitats in order to protect elements of the built environment while enhancing wildlife resources.

There is still much to give away, monitors, some older iMacs, and color management equipment. See below.

My Highway One San Mateo Coast workshop is coming right up July 11-12. The next Fine Art Digital Printing class for September 17-20, 2026 has one spot left in it. The August 8-11 session is now full. I am reducing the class size to three and If you want to join me, register soon.

— Steve

As these newsletters can cover many subjects, let me know of topics you would like to see addressed.

Scholarships

As part of my ongoing commitment to photographic education, there is one student scholarship spot in many of my classes. Please pass the word along.

For discounted time studying with me, keep in mind my Mentoring Program.

Last Light Ferns. 2026.

This photograph from last months trip the Pacific Northwest stayed with me beyond it’s use in last month’s Newsletter. I decided it would make a fine featured print this month.

I’m offering an un-matted 14-inch-wide print of this photograph for $195. Larger prints can be ordered. This print at this price is offered through July 31. I'll be taking orders until then, and shipping them out by August 15, 2025. The image reverts to its normal price after that, $800 for an 11x14, $1500 for a 16x20 print.

Owl Butterfly. 2026

A visit to a botanical garden in Richmond VA transported me and some friends into a fantasy world of flittering wonder-creatures. I was uncomfortable that it was still a Zoo, but having found myself there, I did try to photograph and was enchanted. Only my iPhone photographs survived my card failure in my Canon camera. Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, VA

THE VIEW FROM HERE
by Stephen Johnson

A Trip East

Three Mile Island

Looking at the route between Rochester and Washington, I realized the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Station was not out of my way at all. Three Mile Island suffered a partial reactor meltdown in March 1979 making world news and causing great concern. The accident happened at about a week after the movie The China Syndrome came out, adding to the local and national reaction and likely effecting the viability and understood risks of future nuclear fission development, including the unfinished Satsop site I had visited only a month before. My visit Three Mile Island was very different than that unfinished Satsop plant in southwest Washington .

I didn’t know what i would feel there. As always I was humbled by the monumental nature of the event, in this case partial meltdown of nuclear reactor. These event places often have a resonance through time that I feel to my core on the visits I feel compelled to make. I believe it is something I carry with me to the places, but the reality of the places, the visual evidence, make the events more real. I felt it at Dachau, at the Kennedy Space Center Apollo 1 fire pad, at the World Trade Center site in New York City, at Dealey Plaza in Dallas.

I was surprised by the site’s size and closeness to the highway. It is so close that the Towers perceptually loom over homes and roads just across the river, making for a very ominous and disturbing proximity to the radiation release in 47 years ago.

I found a safe place to park and walked around for awhile, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, trying to take in the real dangers of what happened there and the potential ecological disaster it might have become. The view through the road-lining tress was wide enough that I had a variety of alignments between power lines, trees lining the river, and giant cooling towers. The towers were strikingly monumental, even ominous. The low western light lit the sky in yellow between the towers. The mood in the sky fit perfectly with how I was feeling. Somber, sobering, almost mournful.

The Constellation Crane Clean Energy Training Center for nuclear engineers and workers was opposite the open view on river road. I know if it had been a sunny day, the mood enveloping the place would have been very different. But this light, in this place, where such danger occurred, and where such disaster was imminent, it all folded together into what felt profound, and very emotional.

It reminded me of how I too seek to drive my preconceived interpretations toward a particular point of view. Two years ago, I visited the US Mexico border near San Diego and found my photographs very different than I had envisioned. The bright unflinching light of summer was not at all what I had in mind to photograph. The border seems ominous to me, the light did not. I said I wanted to go back in more stormy winter weather. The difference also suggests the my preconceptions may need to be reconsidered. I did publish those sunnier photographs here..

Washington DC

I decided i needed to go into Washington DC to see first-hand some of the Trump destruction, distractions and so-called repair. My good freind Dan Pence went with me down to the Capital Mall. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was my first stop to see firsthand the tarps covering the nameplate of the center, erected to now hide the supposedly removed imposition of Trump’s name above. The tarps were strange, and the guard placement bizarre, guarding the tarps I suppose. The guards were friendly and seemed well aware of the irony., even with their perfectly neutral reaction to my queries. It was a strange contrast to wonderful space inside celebrating Kennedy’s appreciation of the arts and culture. Point, and pathetic counter-point noted.

We then walked on toward the White House to see if we could see anything of the East Wing destruction. Along our walk, we saw flashing lights and police where it soon became clear a presidential motorcade was passing by which I was keen to photograph. I got a few images on high speed exposure and auto focus and looked at them that evening.

Apparently I had left my card reader in a motel room a few days earlier, I was offloading files with a direct USBc connection from the camera to the computer. That process was a little clumsy and so that evening I just looked at the camera screen. That turned out to be a fatal decision for those photographs.

From my Airplane Seat:

On my way home from twelve days on the east coast, coming up the Rockies now. My over the wing seat blocks my treasured vantage views, but I do have a slice of the world I can see beyond. I’ve never understood people closing their window shades while flying. To me it is the treasure of the experience. We appear to be now crossing into the west. My reading glasses fell out of my pocket on the last flight, so I’m winging it a bit.

I’ve driven about a thousand miles these last 12 days, going much of the height of the east, from New York to South Carolina. Much of the trip was about seeing friends, with a few pivotal touch points along the way, Washington DC and Three Mile Island among them.

There are some forest fires in the Rockies streaking smoke northeastward. The clouds nearby are picking brownish streaks from the smoke making for some wild color that get a glimpse of through my sky slice. Despite the hard reality of the fires, the clouds are sensual undulations across the terrain, streaking white, gray and brown spaced by the blue view through. I wish I could see more and take in the scene, but most of the sky below is obscured. Sky below, what a mixed up world we’ve created.

The first part of the trip and its timing was a cancer diagnosis from an 85 year old friend that my heart demanded I go see. This is coming on the heal of my friend Jeff Schewe dying only four days after a lung cancer diagnosis leaving none of us time to see him. I couldn’t wait. That created and shaped the trip, visiting some aging friends with some photographs along the way. This biggest bonus of the trip was seeing my daughter, but the whole trip was a gesture of connection.

The delights of trip were many, mostly seeing old friends on the opposite coast. It was a lot of driving, some 5 and 6 hour segments, a few of which were in torrential rain.

The landscape of the eastern US has always been difficult for me. For all of the beauty of the endless trees, they hide the shape of the land. There are few of the vistas and wide open spaces of my native western lands. I often feel hemmed in and somewhat claustrophobic on the east coast. It feels harder to breathe. The humidity contributes to that.

The warm summer rain and humidity created the atmosphere for my late afternoon Three Mile Island visit. The partial reactor meltdown was in 1979, but for me the place still symbolized a sense of dread and outright danger. The size of the four tower nuclear plant was surprising, as was its proximity to so many homes and roads. I kept thinking about the radiation released and the thousands of people surrounding the plant. It was disturbing and left me feeling uneasy for rest of the day. I carried that feeling through to a rainy drive the next day on down to Washington DC. I felt like I needed to see first hand some of the Trump nonsense, so I visited the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool and ended up witnessing a presidential motorcade rush past us.

The visit made the news real and even heavier, but also underscored how so many of his antics are surface and pitiful. We happened across the United States Institute for Peace with its hopeful title and saw Trump’s name added above the building’s official nameplate. It was pitiful and petulant, redefining irony for me, a clear and present danger.

6/29/26

The new studio walls carry forward the display of larger prints from from the previous studio/gallery drawn from various projects in my career.

Currently my up on the walls are my Trees, Firtzgerald Reserve, Last Light on Half Dome Yosemite, Wildflowers Carrizo Plain, Carrizo Flowers and Storm, the Hale Telescope Palomar Observatory, the Life Form featured print Staghorn Fern, prints from the new and forming Organic Landscapes work and Point Reyes Aurora. I seem to always find a place for my 20 inch print of Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother. Four print bins remain browsable through subjects ranging from Rock and Roll, Ireland, Iceland, parks, and local photographs as well as my library of books I’ve created over the last 44 years..

Virtual Educational Experiences

Virtual Classes and Lectures, online live classes on various topics with limited space and Q&A sessions, are now a regular part of my workshop program. Critiques are now virtual.

Virtual Classes

My virtual classes program, launched in 2020, has allowed me to reach students around the world. I remain committed to offering great courses whether in person or virtually. See what satisfying experiences students have had on my workshops by exploring Workshop Testimonials. 

Virtual Mentoring

Set up time for me to help with your photographic work, remote or in-person. Mentoring Program.

Virtual Consulting

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. I want to remind you of my Virtual Online Consulting Program. This service allows all of you out there around the globe to consult online, live, on technical, aesthetic and workflow issues.

Virtual Mentoring/Consulting

Existing Online Tutorials

My Essays and Tutorials from the past couple of years can now be found on my Newsletter Archive.

Photo Chats

I’ve been doing weekly virtual Photo Chats with groups of photo friends to keep everyone encouraged to keep working, creating a forum to share and problem-solve. I’ve now built a webpage on the chats. Let me know if you would like to join us.

Most every Tuesday morning since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, I have been doing weekly virtual Photo Chats on Zoom with groups of photo friends. They are casual, virtual get-togethers, and have created a little community with regular sharing, guest presentations, demos, and photo feedback. Let me know if you would like to join us.

Many of my mentoring students have wanted help with their printing, often to make sure they can produce a specific print. Consequently, my Print Mentoring Program sets up a 2-hour time slot and the production of a finished print, all with the tutorial video of how we produced the print 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. 

Print On Demand Book Projects over the last few years

Click on the book covers above to learn more and purchase.

I finished three new books in 2023. Water: A Photographic Portrait launched the winter, and the new Cliffside Peregrines and Fauna books were finished at the end of the year.

I sold out of the first run of the Fauna book and have reordered all three of the new books for the studio stock.

The links here go to my printer Magcloud, where you can order them directly.