Stephen Johnson Photography News

September 2023

Greetings to my guests and subscribers. Thanks for visiting my September newsletter.

This month's View From Here column explores recent photography, some family history through photos and artifacts, and builds on my knowledge of a photographer from the 1920s who created a collection of glass-plate negatives I was gifted many years ago.

Responding to a student need, I have rescheduled my Photoshop Selections, Adjustment Layers, Tone and Color class to October 7–8, 2023. For those who need Adobe Photoshop help—there’s one space left.

The Seeing Beauty in Photography seminar is coming up on September 23.

My next Black and White Vision and Printing workshop is October 21–22, with the Masterful Fine-Art Printing hands-on workshop being offered November 4–7.

— Steve

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

Ash Tower and River. Katmai National Park, Alaska. 1995.

Maui Fire Relief donation has been added as print Purchase Option. Unmatted 14-inch-tall print for $165. Full price goes to relief.

Cloud and Fog Bank. Pacifica, CA. 2023.

Gazing out at the Pacific Ocean is one of my favorite things to do. Occasionally, wonder presents itself, as it did with this spherical cloud floating in front of a fog bank moving in.

Family History, Photographs, and Stories

Places from Memory

My recent trip included a visit to Lake Yosemite, where I learned to swim. The semi-circular wharf had the first diving board I ever braved. In the middle of the wharf’s arc was a pier, impossibly far across the water for my eight-year-old self. But I did eventually reach it.

Original Film and Lake Yosemite

My mom was a rich mixture of deep humanity, engaging personality, and a collector.

One of the benefits of her “collector” character is that she saved all of her negatives. As I got interested in photography in the early 1970s, I asked her for the negatives and started to organize them. I have long since put almost all of them into polyethylene sleeves, and made some attempts to restore the order of the rolls of film.

Lake Yosemite is a local recreation area in Merced, originally made as an adjunct storage area for irrigation water. In my mom’s collection, there were family pictures of her, my aunt, my cousin, and me out on the lake’s wharf around 1960.

I am now rediscovering many of the family heirloom photos, not only in the stacks of vintage prints, but in the negatives too. The lake and the wharf reminded me of the 1960 prints I had seen since childhood. The negatives were pretty easy to find and gave me a deeper path to follow down during a week exploring my family history. The reality of holding the film in my hand, the film that was there on site, in my mother’s hand, that tangible object, matters to me. The film has emotional power that a digital file does not have. Our digital files are duplicates, the film was there.

Frank Day Robinson Glass Plate Collection

My trip to the Central Valley took me down another research path as well. In the 1980s, I was given a set of glass-plate negatives made by a commercial photographer Frank Day Robinson from the 1920s from in and around Merced County. I did know much about him, so I went by to the Merced Public Library to see what could find. As it turned out, I did find quite a bit, his listing in the local Polk’s Directory (the era’s version of a telephone book) from at least 1922 to 1934, and a few ads. I found a promo bio in a history of Merced County. A visit to the Merced County Courthouse Museum also yielded some pictures of Robinson.

More on the Robinson glass plate preservation project.

A Day Trip to Grizzly Island

Something has been drawing me out to the Grizzly Island Wildlife Area on the Carquinez Strait. It is not far from where the great rivers of California, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, join and form a delta. I had not been out that way since my work on the Great Central Valley Project in the early 1980s. I knew August was not the right time of year for many birds to be present, but I remembered it as a starkly lonely place that had touched me.

I was not disappointed in my few hours driving through the area at the end of August. As I drove south into the refuge towards the strait, the road got ever smaller and rougher, there was almost no one around, holding the exact feeling I hoped for. Fortunately the weather brought high clouds and a breeze, giving some relief from the August heat.

The color work reflected what I saw that day, but I am also very tempted by the black and white possibilities.

I see a silvery, high-key quality to the prints. It will be good to experiment a bit and see if the glow I have in mind can be made into a print.

Of course, if you want to explore just that kind of issue, my Black and White Vision and Printing class is coming up October 21–22.

In the Neighborhood

My recent visit to Washington, DC, gave me a chance to see a classical landscape painting of my near home mountain range. Back home in my studio I was thinking about the painting again and mulling over western cultural notions of beauty and reality.

Albert Bierstadt made grand and wonderful paintings in the late 19th century. They create a world of wonder, rather than depict it. Bierstadt was well-known and respected for this work. Paintings always have the hand and vision of the artist as part of how they are understood. Many created a kind of aspirational reality. Bierstadt is a good example of that.

The disparity between those paintings and the real world reminds me of what a photographer friend of mine once told me after I inquired about his photograph with a very exaggerated rainbow—“it may not be what I saw, but it was what I felt.” That conversation stayed with me.

Beauty, interpretation, intent, and context are all part of how art in all forms is understood. Given sufficient imposition of unreal effects, photography may be much the same.

A photograph is understood to be made by a lens gathering light. But, as I have said for decades, when a photograph has a facade of “reality” that makes it looks real, and it is not, it would benefit viewers if they are informed that they are looking at something somewhat more synthetic. This issue is arising again with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), where generated imagery imitates photographic reality, but as fiction. We’ll see how AI fiction grows into reality distortion. Perhaps it will simply become another distinct pseudo-art form.

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 Mentoring/Consulting

Existing Online Tutorials

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.

Come Visit the Exhibitions (masked visits by appointment)

Life Form Exhibition

Life Form opened in the Main Gallery at Stephen Johnson Photography in July 2018. I’ve had many visitors come by the gallery since the opening. Many have then joined workshops and certainly helped build community. Come see the show by appointment.

Seeking Good Venues for Life Form

I’m seeking good venues to show the Life Form Series. The series is now available for museum and gallery exhibition.

The Studio, Scholarships, Mentoring and Tutorials

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 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. 

Gift Certificates Available for Prints and Workshops!

Water: A Photographic Portrait

My new book Water: A Photographic Portrait, now available to order.

• 88 pages of color and black and white photographs

• 11x17 inches

• Wire bound for completely flat enjoyment

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

• 10 years of calendars

• $50