WELCOME!

Welcome to the May 2005 edition of the Stephen Johnson Photography Newsletter. As always, we hope you enjoy this edition.

Don't miss the June 13-14 Fine Art Printing and the June 4 Fieldwork with the BetterLight Scanning Camera Workshops.

FEATURED PRINT OFFER
May 2005

Stone Dam, Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia. 1994. 11x14 Pigment Print on Rag paper From my first trip out to east coast in autumn with the scanning camera. An infrared from early morning. We're offering an 11x14 inch print, matted to 16x20 and ready to frame for $195, framed for an additional $75. This print at this price is offered through May 31. We'll be taking orders until then, and shipping them out by June 15th. Featured Print Web page

WORKSHOP NEWS * Upcoming Workshops

NEW--One-Day Seminars Professional Exhibition June 2, 2005 $250 Stephen Johnson Studios & Gallery Pacifica, California. Techniques and practices relating to exhibiting your photographs. Matting and framing, labeling, lighting and packing materials are reviewed and demonstrated. To Register Photographic Projects June 3, 2005 $250 Stephen Johnson Studios & Gallery Pacifica, California. Constructing a framework for your work by theme, whether visual, location, political or emotional, can be a very motivating way to work as an imagemaker. You can also examine your existing work and discover relationships and themes that can serve as a means of organizing the photographs, or inspiring a continuation and deepening of the work. Thematic ideas, fundraising, publication and contracts will all be reviewed in this one-day intensive seminar on Photographic Projects. Examples from Steve' career with his projects At Mono Lake, The Great Central Valley and With a New Eye will be part of the discussions. To Register

Fieldwork with the BetterLight Scanning Camera June 4, 2005 San Mateo Coastline and the Stephen Johnson Photography Studios, Pacifica, California. A practical review and demonstration of field work with the BetterLight Scanning camera. We'll talk through visualization and tonal control of real world landscapes with the BetterLight scanning software.
Fine Art Printing June 13-14, 2005 Stephen Johnson Photography Studios This workshop focuses exclusively on fine-art digital printing, primarily using Epson inkjet printers. Concentration will be on inkjet printing with color pigments and black/gray ink combinations on coated and rag papers. We will cover workflow issues, color management, correcting color casts, adjustment layers, custom profile generation, editing and inspection.
San Francisco Digitally July 30-31, 2005 In and around San Francisco for the workshop and 15 miles south at Stephen Johnson Photography Studios in Pacifica for the pre-meeting and critique.
	Color Management Seminar with Bruce Fraser Friday July 15, 2005. 9am to 5pm. $250 email: info@sjphoto.com From Bruce: In this full-day seminar, we'll go all the way back to the basics. We'll start by looking at the fundamentals of human vision, and the models of human vision on which all our current color management is based. I promise that we'll keep it equation-free, so don't be scared off if you're math-challenged. The goal is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the models, because that understanding goes a long way towards explaining what color management can and, equally important, cannot do. Next, we'll examine the relationship between ICC profiles and the devices whose behavior they try to represent. A device profile is simply a snapshot in time of the way the device behaved when the measurements on which the profile is based were taken. Process control is the part of color management that the color management vendors never talk about, so we'll look at best practices for profiling to ensure that the device behaves the way the profile claims. Finally, we'll switch from theory to practice, and examine Photoshop's color management features in detail. We'll delve into the mysteries of RGB working spaces, and look at how careful soft-proofing can save paper, time, and frustration. Along the way, questions will be encouraged, and to the best of my ability, answered.

Southwest Journey through 7 National Parks A Digital Photography Field Workshop with a full moon and the Magical Digital Bus August 10--19, 2005
* Death Valley in Winter January 14-17, 2006 with the Magical Digital Bus
Ireland’s Spectacular West Coast June 24 – July 4, 2006 Seats limited to 12 students Join Stephen Johnson and Anthony Hobbs for an unforgettable journey along the rustic West Coast of Ireland. This workshop will include hotel stays in several towns along our route from County Clare towards Connemara and Achill Island. Along the way, participants will explore western Ireland's landscape with its lush greens, rocky islands and remote castles.  If you are interested in joining the reservation list for this workshop, please email us at info@sjphoto.com.  We are limiting this workshop to 12 students. Photography instruction, transportation, lodging and some meals included. Airfare to and from Shannon will be participant's responsibility. A $500 deposit will reserve your place in the class for 30 days. Please see Irish Workshop link above for details.

UPCOMING EVENTS with Stephen Johnson

Antarctica Workshop November 30 — December 11, 2005 My friend Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape has organized a Photography Workshop to Antarctica in December 2005. I will be teaching the workshop with Michael, John Paul Caponigro, Jeff Schewe, Seth Resnick and Chris Sanderson. We will have the entire boat for our 10 day trek to the Antarctic Peninsula. The workshop filled with Michael's pre-announcement to his own list and so is listed here for information purposes or in case you want to be added to the waiting list.

An Artist's Path: May 2005

The choice to pursue the arts as a career is generally made from the heart. It is often not practical, nor economically sound. It comes from a place where the desire to create and express overrides the desire for material success. Not that we don't all hold onto dreams of the rare breakthrough and good income, but the drive comes from the spirit.

As has been said a thousand times, there are many pitfalls and rewards along an artist's path. Many people simply have to separate their expressive aspirations from their vocations, others struggle with the fusion of the two. I chose the fusion, but often find myself mostly occupied with the business of being in business. That is not where I want the balance to rest, so I continue to improvise, rethink and imagine the possibilities.

Most of the people I know in the arts are doing commercial work, teaching, consulting and/or writing to supplement income from their artwork. A diversity of income sources has always been critical for me. That kind of formula works for many of us because we enjoy those other activities, and feel like we are making a contribution to helping to empower other people to pursue their love of photography. It is not the same as making the artwork, but it is often about building community. Pursuing art can be isolating, which makes community very important. Community building is one of the reasons we have started the Critiquing Sessions at the studio, why I am moving my photo library down to the studio, and why I am starting to bring in other instructors into workshop program here at Stephen Johnson Photography such as Bruce Fraser's Color Management course in July, and later Bert Monroy on Digital Illustration.

One of my most inspirational instructors was Ralph Putzker when he chaired the Art Department and taught at San Francisco State University. His love of sharing and curiousity makes him a sensitive artist and great teacher. My good friend Ted Orland wrote a book many years ago with David Bayles called Art and Fear. It confronts so many of the issues facing the artist, from community, to fear of failure and the drive to create. It is a wonderful supplement to an artist's life. Another book I return to again and again is Robert Adams' Beauty in Photography which always reminds of the why for the making of art, and the sometimes wearying disproportionate amount effort expended for the seeming result.

The process remains about inspiration, inspiration of the artitst, and by the artist. Our best work is done when we feel most inspired, and when we manage to inspire others a crucial creative loop is completed.

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