Stephen Johnson Photography News
November 2025
Point San Pedro. Pacifica. 2025.
Welcome to the November 2025 Edition of the Stephen Johnson Photography Newsletter
Hello to my subscribers and guests. Thanks for visiting this November 2025 newsletter..
This month's View From Here column explores some thoughts on the 50 Years of Portraits work, my expansion of the Urban Eden Golden Gate Park show, and the loss of a dear friend.
The preview of my Urban Eden Golden Gate Park is expanding to a much fuller exhibition now growing to fully occupy the Hallway Gallery. I hope to do an Opening Reception for Urban Eden Selections in mid-November. This collection has been many decades in the making and planned to expand from the current preview into a more full representation of the work since the Preview went up in May.
After a very successful September session, I’ve added a second session of my Masterful Fine Art Digital Photography Printing Class Nov.. 8-11, 2025 with only 2 places left. This is the last scheduled studio workshop before the gallery closes.
With my studio/gallery closing at the end of January, the framed Life Form Exhibition now is available for touring to Galleries and Museums. The show consists of twenty-two 51x39 framed 40x28 inch prints. Other collections of my work are also available for tour or loan.
The Gallery is open most Saturday’s 2-5pm, also when I am here working, and by appointment. Call or email to set up a time to visit 650 355-7507.
— Steve
As these newsletters can cover many subjects, let me know of topics you would like to see addressed.
Upcoming Events & Workshops
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.
FEATURED PRINT November 2025
Raven. Death Valley. 2008.
Ravens are very intriguing creatures, perhaps even mystical. The one was very vocal as we took our lunchtime break at Artist’s Pallete in Death Valley.. I’ve always liked this photograph.
I’m offering an unmatted 14-inch-wide print of this photograph for $195. Larger prints can be ordered. This print at this price is offered through November 30. I'll be taking orders until then, and shipping them out by December 15, 2025. The image reverts to its normal price after that, $800 for an 11x14, $1500 for a 16x20 print.
ARCHIVE PHOTOGRAPH November 2025
Flowering Trees. Golden Gate Park. San Francisco, CA 2020.
Flowering Trees. Golden Gate Park. 2025
These flowering trees in Golden Gate Park glowed like an island of color and wonder next to Blue Heron Lake.
Great Blue Heron over Heron Island. Blue Heron Lake. Golden Gate Park. 2020.
THE VIEW FROM HERE
by Stephen Johnson
Reflection, Expansion and Loss
This month I’ve been working on more Golden Gate Park prints while thinking through this expanded version of the Urban Eden show. I am also making plans for the studio shutdown while preparing my February Death Valley workshop. I am continuing to invest time in our local Pro-Democracy/Pro-Parks protests, showing up, making signs and helping with logistics including the No Kings Day with over 1100 people joining us.
Building the Expanded Urban Eden Show
I’m pleased to be working on the expanded exhibition of my Urban Eden Golden Gate Park work. In April I decided to start showing samples of my photographic project on Golden Gate Park with a 20 print preview of the work. It was a way of getting the process started on this complex curatorial challgenge of thousands of photographs over decades of time.
The second phase of that exhibition is now underway with my expanded selections from the project, likely numbering around 40 pints in all, filling my Hallway Gallery. Unsurprisingly, it’s already clear that even the 90 linear feet of the Hallway Gallery is not big enough to hold the prints I want to show. So, reluctantly, I must also call this a deeper view, but still not a full representation of the work. Although at this writing I am working on building the show, the Opening is planned for November 15.
Angela. Santa Cruz. 1974.
Portrait Thoughts
This month I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ve spent these last fifty years with my camera and how it has shaped my life. My love affair with photography came out of the people around me that I wanted to hold in photographs, and the land I knew. Friends and family, lovers, people I ran across in my widening circle of experiences, all figured into the photographs I was making. Those images ranged from those I knew, to concert photography, to people from the street and fairs. The landscape was my immediate home of the San Joaquin Valley, living outside of town near the foothills that first late summer of diving into photography. Those lands soon extended up into the adjacent Sierra Nevada, then the California Coast and eventually over the Sierra to Mono Lake. I was bouncing between people and landscape, landing on earth-scapes as my subject of concentration, but always watching the faces as human bonds grew, while love came and went.
For the most part, I simply took the earthscapes more seriously, thinking of them as potentially more substantial, and the portraits as more my personal story of the people around me. The 50 Years of Portraits show cemented a more deeply explored evolution of my attitude. Many of these portraits had always been prominently in my mind as part of my life’s work, and valued memories. However, I have started to see them in a broader context, central to my life and development, and as precious moments captured, forever now gone. For those of my friends still around, the photographs renew precious links. For those now gone, they became profound connections to my life and memories.
Plain and Clouds. Early Landscape near my home in the Sierra foothills. 1973.
Portrait Opening Reception on October 11.
I realize the valuing of people pictures in our lives is not unique, but in my own work, I now know I segregated it in a way that did not pay proper respect to the decades of recording those moments of human interaction. This show has changed that for me, and I will now likely expand this body of work to include not only people I know and love, but expand the selections perhaps street portraits, fair and festival photographs, maybe even my self-portraits, all the while trying to keep an open mind about whatever else I run across. As I copy my negatives rather than scan them, it is so much quicker and easier to digitize the film and build the collection of these additional portraits.
I’ve always had a wide curiousity of subject matter, and these thoughts make that an even wider range. But my love of light and the photographic image knows no real limits.
Gallery walk-through with Stephen Johnson in his 50 Years of Portraits exhibition.
Now Four New Books
Catalogs from the recent exhibitions are now available in my gallery and online.
50 Years of Portraits Catalog: a 30 page photo-catalog of the October 2025 exhibition at Stephen Johnson photography. 28 pages, 11x17 inches, $35. Order Here
On Stage catolog: A 36 page photo-catalog of the August 2025 exhibition at Stephen Johnson photography. 28 pages, 11x17 inches, $35. Order Here
Urban Eden Preview catalog: A 28 page photo-catalog of the Spring/Summer 2025 preview exhibition at Stephen Johnson photography. 28 pages, 11x17 inches, $30. Order Here
Western Artifacts: A 40 page photo-catalog of the June 2025 exhibition at Stephen Johnson photography. 40 pages, 11x17 inches, $30. Order Here
Current Featured Exhibition
Opening Soon
Urban Eden: San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The Expanded Preview
Through January 2026
Urban Eden: San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park
As I build a fuller exhibition from my Golden Gate Park Project, I am expanding on the preview I built last May, soon filling the Hallway Gallery.
Urban Eden explores San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park combining Stephen Johnson’s new original photographs with his work made over the past 30 years.
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is 1017 acres of human transformed sand dunes and rocky hills made into an expansive urban park, offering refuge to one of the great cities of the world. Urban Eden is a photographic exploration of the beauty, diversity, and sheer power of will in planning and creating spaces. Set up a time to come by and see the preview.
Falls. Blue Heron Lake. Golden Gate Park. 2024.
Urban Eden: San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. A Preview at Stephen Johnson Photography. April 2025.
Urban Eden: San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. A Preview. Stephen Johnson Photography. April 2025.
Doris Coonrad. Black Point. Mono Lake. from At Mono Lake. 1979.
Doris Coonrad
My friend Doris Coonrad passed away on September 28. She was born in 1928, was 96 years old, and blessed my life with her friendship for 48 years, since 1977. Doris married a geologist, Warren Coonrad, and ended up raising her four children in many places including Hawaii, Alaska, and Liberia.
I first met Doris on a Southwest Arts and Cultures trip run through Foothill College led by my good friends Donna Ottosen and Ralph Putzker. There were 20 women and two men students on the trip, me and my friend Robert Dawson. Doris catered the trip for us and we became friends. Her directness, sense of humor and good spirit was infectious. As it turned out, I already knew her son Jordan a bit as we were both students at San Francisco State University. By then Doris had her own specialty catering business doing a lot of work for Standford University and US Geological Survey events.
Her hobby was photography and within a few years of meeting in 1977 Doris started attending photography workshops with me. She played a crucial role in my At Mono Lake exhibit, not only providing photographs for the show, but by offering a place to live in a cabin on her property while I was putting the show together. We had had many work sessions for the exhibit on her Woodside deck, and many of my friends became her friends as well, including two girlfriends.
Doris and my friendship continued through the years. She catered the Grand Opening of my first studio in 1999. I would frequently go by and visit when I was going down the peninsula toward her home in Woodside.
Doris left instructions for the remaining books to be given away. I have 16 copies. Reserve one and pick it up or we can work out you sending a prepaid mailer for the book.
In 2010 Doris published her Cooking Up a Catering Business book. I was happy to have made some of the food photographs for the book and for the memories to the hours I spent down with making those photographs.
Budget constraints left Doris’ and a few other contributing photographers out of the original printing of the At Mono Lake catalog. That fact prompted me to recreate the book digitally and add a few photographs. I was very happy to be able to give her a copy of the expanded book with her photography included.
Over the last few years she took a particular delight in going out to lunch with me at the Palo Alto vegan restaurant Wild Seed. I last saw her when she got a friend to drive her up for my birthday party in September.
Doris on her deck in Woodside in April of 2021.
Our last visit in September 2025.
At Mono Lake Acknowledgements (from the book)
A number of people deserve special thanks for their help with the show at particularly critical times: Doris Coonrad and her family for inspiration, countless hours of help and for opening their home to me…
Southwest Arts and Cultures group IR photo by Robert Dawson. 1977.
Doris with workshop group in Death Valley, circa 1982.
No Kings: Stand Up, Protest, Resist
Our local October 18 No Kings Protest, over 1100 people.
Joan Baez performing No Kings Protest. San Francisco. 2025.
No Kings: Stand Up, Protest, Resist
We had about 1100 people show up here in Pacifica for the October 18 No Kings Rally with about 1400 honks of support. I then went on in to San Francisco to catch the last of the rally there at Civic Center Plaza, and who showed up, my heroin Joan Baez. It was an inspiring day. It built hope and a sense of empowerment that we can stand up the this madness.
Here are few of the recent signs I’ve made in September and October for our Pro-Democacy Pro-Parks weekly protests at Mori Point road and Highway One, Pacifica, CA. We’ve been averaging about 40 people and 500-700 honks of support over the course of one hour.
Download the sign art and use if you want and they can help.
Recently at Stephen Johnson Photography
News from the Studio and Galleries
The 50 Years of Portraits show went very well and I am very pleased with the reactions. It is now being replaced by the expanded Urban Eden exhibit.
Studio Transition
As the Studio Closes there is more stuff there than will fit into the space I have at home. Among the items looking for new homes. Ideas are welcome.
Studio Assets that Cannot Come Home
27 foot long Panoramic print of Stonehenge
Iris Realist Printer vintage 1997
Vintage Agfa Horizon Film/print scanner
HP Color Designjet 3100Z 44 inch printer
Shows Available for loan or Tour
Gallery Hours for November
The Gallery is open some Saturdays 2-5pm. weekdays when I am here working, and by appointment. Call or email to set up a time to visit 650 355-7507.
Current Exhibitions
Prints in the Gallery
There are always new prints available to see in the gallery, from the Hale Telescope, to the Golden Gate Park Project, to the evolving Animal Series and new selections in the discounted print bins.
Current Exhibitions
The current exhibitions in the gallery include the Golden Gate Park project preview and the continuing in the main gallery is my Life Form exhibition.
Visiting the Gallery
My galleries and studio are generally open by appointment, but I am often there 10am–5pm on weekdays. Write to inquire or call 650 355-7507 to schedule an appointment.
I hope you can come by the gallery and see the original prints in the Life Form Gallery and its Life Form Portfolio. I invite you to join me on a workshop, rent lab space, or just say hello and let me know what you are up to photographically and what you might like to see me offer. I value your input.
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.
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.
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, 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.
Shop for books, posters, notecards and videos stretching across my career. Check it out.
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.
Life Form Folio
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 to make. 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
Pacifica: A Photographic Portrait of Land and Sea
Page 7
Page 27
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
Gift Certificates for Prints and Workshops!
Emailed or shipped with beautiful gift note card.
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