FEATURED PRINT OFFER
October 2009

Every iceberg is different. Some are white, tall and majestic, others crystalline, shading from deep blue to almost transparent. They can be sensual well beyond belief. This one was.

We're offering an 11x14 inch print, matted to 16x20 and ready to frame for $195, framed in silver for an additional $75, wood for $150. This print at this price is offered through October 31. We'll be taking orders until then, and shipping them out by November 15th.

About the Program
Each month we offer a signed, original print, at a special price. This is a great opportunity to own a very affordable fine-art photograph. Orders are taken for a 30-day period, then printed and shipped within two weeks after the close. When it's over, it's over, these prints won't be available again at this price.

Photography as Communication

I recently had a very moving experience based on a photograph from more than 20 years ago. I went back to my home town of Merced to lecture at the new University of California there. A few old friends got in touch when they heard I was coming to town. One was a friend from political campaigns in the late 60's and 1970. Candice was now teaching part time at Merced College and wondered whether I could come by her Creative Writing class as they were using my book on the Central Valley, The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland, writing stories from the photographs.

Of course I agreed to come by, and was almost moved to tears by the experience. Candice had chosen a photograph from my brother's back yard from 1982 and it was absolutely fascinating to hear some of the memories triggered and the places thinking about this image took the students.

It reminded me that we know so little of what effect we might have when we create an expression. Whether a photograph, words, a piece of music or a sculpture, by our act of giving physical manifestation to our vision we create a potential chain of reaction that can go on almost endlessly. I was very humbled by some of the effects, and thrilled to see something I made, and so long ago, have such an effect on people now. I suppose it was even more so as the class was filled with a classic cross-section of valley immigrant young people, few of them from there, all with aspirations, all very deeply human memories and likely their own creative impulses.

Main Street, Ceres, Stanislaus County. 1984.

There were stories of visits to grandparents farms, yearning for a rural life, made up narratives of the likely circumstance of the people whose laundry was hanging in the "Yard, Le Grand" photograph, longing for their own versions of a simpler home life left behind somewhere. Many seemed touched by the experience of the letting the photograph take them to another place. I was very pleased with their words.

I often go off about how photography has a unique and precious place in our human understanding of the world around us and its ability to even feed our own memories and supplant them. This particular experience just cemented those notions even deeper in my mind.

Of course how we use the photographs, the context in which they are seen, the association between images, these all effect our understanding. In a book, we often make page spreads with a photograph filling both the left and right pages, thereby associating photographs as we design them into these side by side relationships. Such placement needs to make sense to the viewer in some way.

The fruitstand above, seen alongside the pesticide can dump at a small crop dusting airfield creates an editorial relationship. Mostly, such associations weaken the power of the individual images and the broader meaning the viewer can bring to the experience These did not appear side by side in the Central Valley book.

I've always preferred to make such spreads be about design and spatial relationships rather them implied meaning. There are all sorts of ways of making the relationships work though, I've tried to avoid the editorial, and stay on the visual.

Yettem, Fresno County. 1984.

The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland

The book from which these photographs were drawn, our 1993 work with a 70,000 word manuscript by Gerald Haslam and photographs by Robert Dawson and me.

Memory

I've been looking for some misplaced negatives from the 70s the last few weeks. Without really intending to, it has become a huge trip through the last few decades of life, work, memories and family.

There are, of course, the huge numbers of unrealized gems (particularly if they remain as proofs rather than fully seen as prints), far too many negatives stuffed unproofed into file folders screaming to be scanned, and the inevitable feeling of being overwhelmed by my 20 years of film.

As many have noted, photographs not only remind us of our past, they have a strange and sometimes disturbing quality of supplanting actual memories. A photograph's power, and video for the matter, to bring back a view of the past is extraordinary...glimpses of people now gone, events long past, settings preserved. By the focus on the particular, they can also distort the real balance of perception at the time, creating emphasis and concentration on the recorded. This has is own built-in distortion, and insight, as those moments were chosen to be recorded.

But photographs also deepen our experiences of the scenes we choose to record. They can be held, studied, experienced in very different ways. I often remind people that for all of it value and potential importance, a photograph is very reductive of your real world experience. And that is true. A photograph is also long-lived, and a moment, by definition, momentary. The freezing of a momentary visual impression has it own language and boundaries, but it's own realities as well, sometimes startling realities...a nuance held, a juxtaposition of revealing expressions, a hard to believe, fleeting phenomena. Some things happen too fast to be sure we saw them at all, like a tiny green burst above the sun as it sets.

MY LATEST BOOK

Professional Photographers of America 2007 Hot One Awards

Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography

Book Reviews
Book Comments online

Fine-Art Digital Printing Hands-On
December 10-13, 2009
Stephen Johnson Studios & Gallery
Pacifica, California.

This workshop focuses exclusively on improving your fine-art digital printing in our new Digital Lab, primarily using Epson inkjet printers. Concentration will be on inkjet printing with color pigments and black/gray ink combinations on coated and rag papers. Learn from the digital pioneer how he obtains his impressive results during four days of lectures, printing, and feedback in the studio.

We will cover workflow issues, color management, correcting color casts, adjustment layers, custom profile generation, editing and inspection. There being no magic bullet to making good prints, the workshop will also explore old fashioned testing, careful color judgments and interactive honing in on the best print possible.

Mono Lake and the Eastern Sierra
October 10-13, 2009 (now full)

Additional session added: October 15-18, 2009

The stark and beautiful scenery of this legendary lake is unlike any other landscape in the world. Its alkaline water, desert vistas, volcanoes and unusual tufa towers make it a remarkable place. The presence of this huge lake in the eastern Sierra desert is improbable at best, its out of place character is pervasive, at times seeming more lunar than terrestrial.

Mono Lake can change from a tranquil expanse of silver water to a blue-green stormy sea in minutes. It is a most intriguing place. It is both a challenge and a pleasure to photograph at Mono Lake. But Mono Lake's beauty does not necessarily make it easy to photograph here. The desert sun can be harsh, and the horizon can appear endless. It takes time and patience to catch the subtlety of Mono's moods. The autumn weather should provide some interesting cloud formations. The lake's strange landforms can easily become ordinary when photographed casually. Consequently this place demands a certain intensity to do it visual justice. A primary goal of our time spent together will be to slow down and understand the lake on a more intimate level than might normally be possible.

These four days will be a dynamic combination of a traditional landscape photography workshop while diving deep into the digital age. Technical and aesthetic considerations will be discussed in detail, while we explore this high desert lake and its strange environs.

Pt. Lobos and Carmel: A Digital Photography Field Workshop November 14-16, 2009

Ansel Adams called Pt. Lobos "the greatest meeting of land and sea" on earth. It is truly an amazing combination of rock, surf, wildlife, changing light and abstraction...aqua surf, orange lichen, organic rock forms and waving sea palms. We'll walk the trails, wander the rocks, get lost in form and light. We'll talk to a gallery director, explore the Carmel photography scene, likely eat well and do a special session with photographer Al Weber at his Carmel Highlands studio in this three-day immersion into classical California landscape photography.

Death Valley in Winter
January 28-31, 2010

Transformed from a searing 120 degree desert in summer to January's mild 60-70 degree weather, Death Valley is filled with intriguing landforms, delicate flora, strange mineral deposits and expansive views. Mile high Dante's View overlooks the patterned salt flats of Badwater and the Amargosa River below (the lowest point in the United States). Badwater's still water in turn mirrors the blue and white Panamint Mountains to the West. The lunar landscape of Ubehebe Crater's black volcanic fields rise from the rolling desert at the valley's north end with the steep gorge of Titus Canyon and Red Pass to the southeast.

Personal Workshops and Art Consulting Arrangements can be made to work with Steve individually at his studio or at custom locations. Call for a discussion of the possibilities. 650 355-7507

Steve and Tom Olympic Peninsula, 2002.

PhotoPlus New York City
October 22-24, 2009

12 Things to Improve Your Photography
Thursday, October 22, 2009. 1:15pm-3:15pm
TB9


Down to Earth Color Management
Friday, October 23, 2009. 3:30pm-5:30pm
FC10

At The Studio Gallery

Critique: Thursday Evening October 29, 2009. 7pm

Galleries open by appointment. 650 355-7507.

Class Visits

Many of my fellow photography instructors have brought their classes by the gallery and studios for talks over the years. I realized I had never made this aspect of our activities here public, so here it is:

We welcome photography classes to visit.

Canon's Explorer of Light Photographer - Stephen Johnson
Photographer Lecture Series

Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography
University of Kentucky. Lexington.
Wednesday evening November 4, 2009

Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography
Hawkeye College, Waterloo, Iowa
Thursday evening November 5, 2009

Photography's Brilliant Future. Stephen Johnson.

6Sight Future of Imaging Conference Monterey
Monterey Conference Center
November 12. 2009. 9am

Printing Industries of America Color Management Conference
Scottsdale, Arizona
Photography Session with Stephen Johnson
Real World RAW from Large Format to Digital SLRs
Monday, December 7, 2009. 10:00-11:30 am

Book Reviews

Barnes & Noble Review: From Our Editors
This is a passionate, deeply personal guide to digital photography by a true legend in the field. If you've been fortunate enough to participate in one of Stephen Johnson's seminars or to view his breathtaking national parks landscapes, you know his book has the potential to be truly extraordinary. And so it is.Johnson teaches sophisticated technique without ever losing track of art. You will learn powerfully important things about digital sensors and high dynamic range photography; about multi-exposure panoramas and scanning; about tone, layers, and Photoshop curves; about Camera RAW Workflow and honest restoration.He roots digital photography deeply in its historical context without ever losing sight of the present -- or the future. He also captures the deep importance of digital photography -- and its ethical implications -- without ever becoming pretentious. And the images? No words suffice.

-Bill Camarda, from the November 2006 Read Only

Book Comments online

"Steve Johnson, one of the true visionaries of the digital photography era, offers us a technical tour de force and passionate artistic overview of the possibilities inherent in this new medium. On Digital Photography should be required reading for every aspiring photographic artist."

-Ted Orland, photographer & writer

...As Johnson says at the books very beginning in a Note from the Author: “I have often also been frustrated at the concentration on the technical aspect of digital photography with so little discussion of the aesthetics and the heart behind the imagery.” Indeed and at the book’s end he uses this frustration to deliver hugely enlightening home run. The book itself is an artistic treasure with a very meaningful subtitle: Text, Photography and Design by Stephen Johnson. Johnson obviously demanded freedom to create. Tim O’Reilly did well when he granted Johnson’s wish. Quite simple the best photography book I have ever seen.

-Gordon Cook's Collaborative Edge
September 9, 2006

Printers I'm no longer using are being Donated to educational/charitable or government organizations. Send an email. All working when last used. Must pick up.

• Epson 5500 (with lots of ink supplied)
• Epson 9000 (dye inks and Lyson grayscale set included)
• Epson 9500
• Epson 10000
  
  

FOR SALE

Printers being replaced:

• Epson 2200 $300
• HP 5500 Color Laser $1500