I have been a serious amateur photographer since college, working in medium and large formats, as well as 35mm and now digital. Other than some basic training in newspaper darkrooms when I was in high school, I am self-taught in both silver and digital printing.
My aesthetic is a formalist one, forged early in my life when I surrounded myself with the images and language of Edward Weston, Minor White, and Harry Callahan, each of whom taught me in different ways how to compose my native California landscape. Clive Bell’s little book, Art, written in 1914 on the relationship of significant form to aesthetic emotions and Weston’s Daybooks, which express much of the same sensibility, continue to be strong influences.
Like many who have followed the long curve to digital processing, I have found the resolution to be a happy one. These techniques simply provide more precise control in the very areas of traditional silver printing that give those images such power; change has embraced and enabled tradition. The images on this site encompass thirty-five years of work. Most have found their way into private collections; published work includes a portfolio of nudes in Popular Photography’s annual Woman. A long-term resident of Marin County, California where many of the images were made, I now work and live in New York City.
This website was designed with affection, an excellent eye, and enduring patience by Patricia Krahnke.
