Silicon Valley Open Studios on May 4–5, 2024

Pacifica Center for the Arts and my studio are participating in the annual Silicon Valley Open Studios on May 4–5, 11am–5pm. Come by and join the arts scene in my studio at the Pacifica Center for the Arts.

Photo Chats

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.

Recent Prints in the Gallery

There are new prints available to see in the gallery, from the spring Super Bloom to the Golden Gate Park Project to the evolving Animal Series and new selections in the discounted print bins. The new From the Archives 2024 exhibition has just gone up.

Current Exhibitions

The current exhibitions in the gallery include From the Archives 2024 and Life Form.

Visiting the Gallery

My galleries and studio are open by appointment, but I am generally there 10am–5pm on weekdays. Write to inquire or call 650 355-7507 to schedule an appointment.

Subscribe to my Blog

As I’ve mentioned in my last few newsletters, I’ve renewed more frequent postings on my blog derived from my newsletters and Facebook posts. I’m gradually moving other blog forums no longer supported to this one central place. You can view or subscribe at: https://sjohnsonphoto.wordpress.com 

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.

A Dark Eclipse

April 8, 2024

I felt compelled to go to the 2024 solar eclipse stretching across America. Originally I thought Mexico was a good place to view the event from, but distractions kept me from following through. I looked for months for someone to go Texas with me, as I didn’t really want to drive the 1,700-mile drive to Texas on my own. Many of my friends were interested, but in the end no one was able to go. Various ideas rose and fell over the weeks—including one that fell apart only a week and a half before the great alignment.

I had resolved to do the wildflowers from this spring’s super bloom instead. Only a few days before, I realized I simply had to go and checked into flights to Texas. A good friend’s offer to help with the costs made me leap. At the same time, weather reports indicated Texas could easily be overcast. Finally, the combination of seeing my kids and grandsons on the East Coast seduced me up to Rochester, New York, where some friends live. This was two days before the eclipse and required a midnight flight the night before.

My midnight flight to the eclipse was delayed almost an hour out of San Francisco, which convinced me for most of the almost-four-hour flight that I would not make it. I worked at not being too disappointed. Rushing across Chicago’s O’Hare airport to make the connection was an act of faith, I barely made the connecting flight to Rochester. I was completely out of breath, boarding at the last moment, surprised to have made it at all.

After feeling grateful for making my unlikely connection, I was imagining a great view of the eclipse. Friends picked me up at the airport, but the overcast was dense, only an occasional glimpse revealed the actual sun. Seeing the eclipse seemed ever less likely. We drove, and drove, hoping for a shining sun. It was not to be. We headed for higher ground hoping for views across the land. But the overcast got denser. We parked next to Canadice Lake, one of the region’s glacial Finger Lakes. The trees and water seemed a nice setting.

The sky darkened as totality approached. It started to sprinkle, then actually rain. The sky became a featureless gray, darkening as the minutes passed. Before long it looked more like dusk than mid-afternoon. The darkness grew and became night-like. It was eerie. For no discernible reason, it was suddenly becoming night. Without the context of seeing the wonder and beauty of the eclipse itself, but only the effect of it, the whole experience turned on end. We were in night at 3:20 in the afternoon.

It became a mystery hidden. How could the day become night, with no magical sun with the moon as a black hole to explain it. For all of the majesty of watching a total solar eclipse fully evolving before us, this was empirically unexplained, inexplicable. It was impossible to explain with the evidence at hand.

I should probably have gone to Texas, but then again, I’ve seen two total eclipses, and I saw something today I had not seen before, an invisible hand of cosmic alignment turning day to night.

Precious Time and Decades of Work

These last few months of digitizing old film archives, hanging an exhibition of photographs from my archives, and trying but missing the last total eclipse within reach has me pondering time and projects.

There comes a time in most lives when we realize we have far less time ahead than we’ve already lived. I’m not talking math, that realization would be at mid-life. I’m speaking more about the working into my consciousness that the time ahead is clearly limited, likely countable and narrowing every day. Even with life expectancy leaving me a few decades yet, it is a realization that time is running out.

No matter how we’ve lived our lives, I suspect most of us have unfulfilled aspirations, interests, and simply things we wanted to do. This could be personal or career, running the whole gamut of human experience. Much of life feels eternal. Despite the known reality of life ending at some point, we live much of our lives as though it is so far away as to not dominate our thinking. We have to. We go through our lives working to build the lives we want, making choices that sometimes move us toward our goals, sometimes cope with unforeseen circumstance, and sometimes merely improvise, hopefully giving and receiving much love along the way.

When living a life driven by curiosity, there is always more to do, more to see, more to feel, more to learn. If we are pulled to creative processes, there are always new ideas, new perspectives, new ways of speaking, and new seeing to explore. My life has certainly evolved along these lines.

Inevitably, much is left undone, not fully explored, left to come back to. At some point, there is more left unfinished than can ever be finished, more new things to explore than there is time remaining. Even with an aspirational and longing heart, eventually there is a sense of opportunity narrowing way sooner than we are ready. This is true even without considering likely declining health and energy. There comes a time when there are simply not enough days left.

In photography, most of us can never catch up to the images we’ve already exposed. A lifetime of concentrating on the work that jumps off the proof sheet or gets a strong rating on image review, ends up leaving most of our work ignored, even by us.  Much less anyone else.

There are short periods of time where I concentrate on the older work, pulling out images from a project to nudge along, then stumbling into forgotten photographs, exploring my own career. But that sense of limited time rises up quickly. Being overwhelmed can rapidly supplant seduction of the forgotten.

And then there is the new. For me, the pull of photography is about seeing the new, new explorations, new ironies, new quirkiness, a rare example of unexpected beauty. The new keeps me working. A lifetime of images in the filing cabinet or media archives is a rich heritage, but it is hard to balance with the new. New is exciting, old already had its chance.

The time ahead has ever-greater limits with every dawning day. And in my best of times, every dawn has new possibilities. Finding balance between these contrary pulls is getting ever-more important and challenging.

After all I’m only 68, but wow I’m 68 and counting.

Projects Over the Years

• Rock and Roll

• At Mono Lake

• Pastel Awakenings

• The Great Central Valley Project

• Western Artifacts (ever expanding)

• With a New Eye

• Digital Panoramics

• Exquisite Earth

• Life Form

• 50 Years of Space Photography

• Urban Eden: Golden Gate Park (in progress)

For most of my life, trips to the National Mall, museums, and monuments in Washington, DC, were largely about hope and wonder. Since 9/11, a darker feeling tended to dominate my experience. My experiences have been deeply influenced by the politics of the times.

The aftermath of Jan. 6 left me making a point of thanking US Capitol Police for their defense of the US Capitol Building. In the years after, I began to breathe easier. Mid 2023 began to turn the tide again with the Supreme Court stomping on women’s rights and the threat of a Trump return.

This visit had a darkness present, but a counter-sense that by the weekend aid to stop Putin would be in place and the criminal justice system slogging forward would be in place. I cannot, and do not want to separate my experience of America’s capital with our ongoing quest to build the country we described in our founding documents.

I went down to the Mall to visit the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, but found a time/reservation line that made me just walk around instead. There was a lot of activity going on next to the Capitol Building and Supreme Court. Rallies, school visits, press conferences, and visitors like me just being there.

Of course Washington, DC, is also full of many allusions to European architecture. That continues to seem strange to me.

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility

Rounding a corner of a small highway and suddenly seeing the NASA logo was a bit of surprise. It clearly supports my term “wandering” for what I often do. As I was on my way to Chincoteague, near the southern portion of Assateague Island I passed by NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. Rounding the curved highway brought into view what seemed like dozens of large white satellite communication disks and prompted a stop along the way.

Hanging a New Show for the May 4–5 Open House

A new collection of my photographs is up in Gallery Two at my studio. From the Archives 2024 is an installation of 29 photographs from throughout my career, ranging from vintage silver-gelatin photographs to pigment inkjet prints. Gallery Two’s west wall concentrates on With a New Eye: The Digital National Parks Project photographs. A few of the photographs have never been show in public before.

All framed prints are 20% off for the May 4–5 Open House.

Thanks to former students and friends Carl Schwab and Eleanor Normile for helping me hang the show

Free Stuff Needing a Good Home

I rescued a few Beseler Enlargers, a 23c and 4x5, hoping to find good homes for them. Free to anyone who will use them.

Equipment for Sale

Previously owned, but pristine, visually unused.

Canon Lenses

• Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 IS USM lens $400

• Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 IS Macro STM Lens $375

• Canon RF 600mm f/11 IS STM Lens $550

Email your interest

2023 Print On Demand Book Projects

I finished new three new books in 2023. My new Water book launched last 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 purchase links here go to my printer Magcloud, where you can order them directly.

Each book cover image will click to the order page.

The Life Form Folio

When I 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-inch, wire-bound book, featuring five years of work from 2013 to 2018 exploring these magnificent lives. 

• Photographs from 2013–2018

• 36 pages

• 11x17-inch wire-bound book

• $40

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

• 74 pages

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

• Pacifica Trail Map

• 32 years in Pacifica

• drawn from 10 years of calendars

• $50

Emailed or shipped with beautiful gift note card.

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