Description And Outline

(Continued from the blog post, “San Francisco Art Institute Photography History, Part 12.”)

Cumulus Clouds Over Indian Valley, Northern Sierra Nevada, copyright 1948 Philip Hyde.

Summer School, as Ansel Adams referred to it, first started in 1946. The course ran for six weeks of intensive instruction based on the regular day school in photography at the California School of Fine Arts now the San Francisco Art Institute. Minor White first taught with Ansel Adams in the Summer of 1946 with students including Philip Hyde, Benjamen Chinn, William Heick, Ira Latour, Pirkle Jones, Ruth-Marion Baruch, Don Whyte, Pat Harris, David Johnson, John Rogers, Al Richter, Bob Hollingsworth, Walter Stoy, Helen Howell and others.

In preliminary descriptions of the course for the CSFA School Board, Ansel Adams suggested: “It should be considered as part of the full day school year rather than… supplementary…” The Summer Session became what Ansel Adams described as “a ‘screening course’ for the main student body of the day school.”

Ansel Adams further described the proposed course:

It should be made very intensive and should reveal within its six weeks span the abilities – or lack of them – of the students. Only those should be admitted who have definite intention to take at least the first year of the main school sessions. The exact topics to be considered in the summer school will be basic but of course should not be too extensive. The first summer school period in 1946 will enable us to clear up various ‘bugs’ in the studio, lab, and general operation. The summer school of 1947 should be designed, I believe, as a buffer course to enable the regular day students to perfect their work and to round out missing or weak aspects of their knowledge.

Outline Of Ansel Adams’ Summer Session 1946

Department of Photography

California School of Fine Arts

Day School:

Week 1

Period:

1:            Organization, outline of study and general assignments, etc.

2:            Functions of the Camera and Lens

3:            Demonstration of above

4:            Photographic Visualization

5:            Demonstration

6:            Basic Photographic Esthetics

Week 2

Period:

1:            Resume of Photographic History and Esthetics

2:            Philosophy of Exposure and Development of the Negative

3:            Demonstration Including Darkroom Mechanics

4:            Demonstration Including Orthochromatics

5:            Problem: demonstration-Visualization through execution

6:            General Discussion

Week 3

Period:

1:            Presentation of a photographic problem  (1^st assignment)

2:            Execution of the problem – exposure and development of the negative

3:            Printing

4:            Demonstration

5:            Printing of the negatives of the above problem

6:            Discussion and criticism of problem-assignment results

Week 4

Period:

1:            Elements of photographic Composition

2:            Presentation of 2^nd Photographic Problem (2nd assignment)

3:            Field or Studio work under direction

4:            Printing under direction

5:            Toning of prints

6:            Discussion and criticism of second assignment

Week 5

Period:

1:            Expressive fields of photography

2:            Presentation of the 3^rd Photographic Problem (assignment)

3:            Field or Studio work under direction

4:            Mounting and spotting of prints (presentation)

5:            Philosophy of Artificial light in photography

6:            General Discussion and criticism of assignment 3

Week 6

Period:

1:            Assignment using artificial light and analysis (4^th assignment)

2:            Assignment: Three interpretations of the same subject (5^th assignment)

3:            Minor darkroom techniques (reduction, intensification, bleaching, etc.)

4:            Survey of contemporary directions in photography, Critical basis.

5:            Resume of philosophy of technique

6:            General discussion, exhibit work and criticism.

Four periods devoted to work in addition to the six periods outlined above are required. The exact assignments will be worked out well in advance. An emphasis on regional subject material to be maintained throughout. Full demonstration of all work required. Laboratory assistants will be on constant duty five or six periods out of the total of 10 periods per week.

Pumpkin, Melting Snow Patterns On Deck, Northern Sierra Nevada, California, copyright 2011 by David Leland Hyde. Nikon D90.

Dear Pilgrims and Natives, the Turkey is a little slim this year, but we all still have much that deserves gratitude. Every day, even in the darkest of times, each of us can find something for which we are grateful. This Thanksgiving I am grateful for good neighbors, good friends, a good guitar or two or three strummed or picked around a warm wood stove with a glass of wine and more food than anyone needs. I am also grateful for Lumiere Gallery and the Messages From The Wilderness Show. I am grateful for all other photography galleries and venues that have hosted exhibitions of Dad’s photographs in the last few years, as well as each of the photography galleries that now represent my father’s pioneering conservation landscapes in the form of vintage black and white prints, archival digital prints, dye transfer prints and Cibachrome prints. I am also thankful to the following bloggers and websites for either Tweeting, Twittering, Re-tweeting, putting on Google+, on Facebook, embedding in their website or photoblog, or otherwise linking to or mentioning the ALL NEW PHILIP HYDE SHORT VIDEO. Dad would be shocked, humbled, amazed, and when he got used to the idea, happy to see his photographs shown around the world. Thank you to each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart…

Note: Those names below in blue are links as customary. Those in black that are not links I either could not find again or they were buried in a long list of shares. Topsy and some other social media search sites are currently having technical difficulties. Even the Holy Grail, Google Search, does not seem to crawl all tweets and shares, even on its own platform Google+. Also, as I am not yet a participant of some of the social media, not all searches are available to me. If you are one of those listed below and would like your name linked to your share or post of the video, please send me the link in the contact form above or in an e-mail. Same goes for those who I have accidentally omitted from the list and deserve my apologies.

Jim M. Goldstein

William Neill

Sharon and Dirk Van Lieu

Robert Rodriguez, Jr.

Guy Tal

Art Wolfe

PJ Finn

Richard Wong

Stephen Gingold

G. Dan Mitchell

Steve Sieren

Seung Kye Lee

Dan Baumbach

Greg Russell

Michael Frye

Paul Dickenson

Michael E. Gordon

Jim Sabiston

Carl Donohue

Q.T. Luong

Russ Bishop

Sven Seebeck

Michael R. Reynolds

John Paul Caponigro

Paul Colangelo

Sean Arbabi

Buzztail

Atlanta Celebrates Photography

Alltop

Creative Live

F8 Daily

Networked Blogs

World Panorama Stock

Fox News Travel Section

Newsodrome

Technorati

Shootplex

Photo Life Magazine

Photogravity

New School of Photography

Gaia Gallery

Byte Photo

Orlando Photography

Travelscenics

Mitrasites

Bob Yellowlees, proprietor of Lumiere Gallery, is a genius. Why? Well, among the reasons has to be that he hired Tony Casadonte as gallery manager. Tony Casadonte runs the gallery, builds the Search-friendly website on WordPress, presents and sells vintage prints and digital prints, oversees matting and framing, coordinates events, activities and a lecture series with the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, a large number of other tasks and accomplishments… and… oversees the recording of videos. He coordinated and designed the ALL NEW 3:18 MINUTE PHILIP HYDE VIDEO…

Philip Hyde from Lumière on Vimeo.

The Making Of The New Video

One day Tony Casadonte told me I would receive a recorder in the mail. Seemed a bit strange, but everything is strange these days when it comes to technology. Sure enough, one day this box about 6″ X 10″ X 8″ arrived in my mailbox. I opened it up. Tony explained the contraption, “It’s only a couple hundred dollar recording machine, but we shipped it FedEx to be sure it arrived safely.” It was digital. No tapes. OK, I know I am hopelessly stuck in the 1980s when I remember my father picking up the first tape recorder commercially available from Sony. Anyway, no moving parts, amazing. Just press a button and start talking.

Tony gave me an outline of his interview points and I started speaking into the microphone to answer them. Every so often Tony interrupted and said, “Well, what about this?” or “That?” In a flash, seemed like, we had an hour and a half of me rattling on about my father pioneer landscape photographer and conservationist Philip Hyde and his work. I burned a copy of the recording right to my computer for backup, put the recorder in the box and done. Tony said he would have to edit it. OK, I agreed. He sent me several versions of the audio, cut down to three and four minutes. The editing shined in one version. Tony said, I’ll have my guy Neal go to work on this and cue up a video with music and your father’s photographs. Hopefully we will be able to make a video or two more out of the rest of the recording.

In a day or two Tony and Neal posted the newest version of the video on Vimeo and a slightly different version on YouTube. Take a look. I am amazed at the results. From my convoluted ramblings, they somehow cut a very focused, concise statement about my father that would have made him proud. Hats off to Tony Casadonte and his team, or is it Bob Yellowlees’ team? Anyway, great job gentlemen, thank you. Take a look yourself… and… don’t miss the current exhibition at Lumiere Gallery, “Messages from the Wilderness,” prominently featuring Dad’s conservation photography and the work of other great conservation photographers such as Ansel Adams, Edna Bullock, Peter Essick, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Tom Murphy, Bradford Washburn, Edward Weston and Brett Weston.

Messages From The Wilderness Exhibition

November 12-December 23, 2011

Lumiere Gallery
425 Peachtree Hills Avenue
Building 5, Suite 29B
Atlanta, GA 30305
404-261-6100

For more information about the exhibition see the blog post, “Messages From The Wilderness Opening At Lumiere Gallery.”

Messages from the Wilderness

Saturday November 12

10 am – 4 pm

Opening All Day

Exhibition: November 12-December 23, 2011

Messages From The Wilderness Installation At Lumiere Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, Copyright 2011 by Tony Casadonte. Note the 32X40 archival digital print of Philip Hyde's "Great Overhang, Moqui Canyon, Glen Canyon, 1964" in the center flanked by 11X14 digital prints of "Virginia Creeper, Northern Sierra Nevada, California" and "Mt. Denali, Reflection Pond, Denali National Park, Alaska." Two Robert Glen Ketchum prints outside of that between the Philip Hyde prints with Philip Hyde's "Cathedral In The Desert, Glen Canyon, Utah" and "Dogwood, Sequoia National Park, California," on the outside far ends of the main wall. Other areas of the show feature Philip Hyde's hand made vintage black and white prints of Glen Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Canyonlands National Park and others.

Lumiere Gallery
425 Peachtree Hills Avenue – Building 5
Atlanta, GA 30305
404-261-6100

See the Lumiere Gallery website for a new video featuring David Leland Hyde talking about his father and the birth of modern environmentalism.

This exhibition features works deploying the visual power of photography to communicate and understand an appreciation of the great American Wilderness. These photographers have captured the beauty and form of nature using straight photography, documentary, pictorialism, abstraction and unusual lighting effect to communicate a story or to stimulate the viewer’s innate imagination. The work involved often has provided the foundation for major conservation campaigns.

The show includes photography by: Philip Hyde, Ansel Adams, Edna Bullock, Peter Essick, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Tom Murphy, Bradford Washburn, Edward Weston and Brett Weston.

The exhibition will be on view from Thursday November 3rd through Saturday, December 31st.

Brett Weston, born December 16, 1911 inherited his father Edward Weston’s love and gift for photography. In the fall of 1925 Edward Weston loaned Brett Weston a 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ Graflex camera. After a few basic instructions from his famous father, Brett Weston’s first photographic explorations gave way to an active career spanning over 68 years. Brett Weston not only assisted Edward Weston, but also collaborated and influenced his esteemed father.

At sixteen he had his first exhibition at UCLA along side his father, Edward Weston. International recognition followed, eighteen of his photographs were included in the influential German exhibition “Film and Foto” in 1929, which brought together an international group of artists with a highly progressive outlook. He also was part of the Group f.64 show at the M.H. De Young Museum in San Francisco in 1932. By the time Brett Weston was in his early 20s his photographs were exhibited in Europe, Japan and throughout the United Sates.

Brett Weston set himself apart from his father by pushing his work into the realm of abstraction, and thus participating in the mid-century movement of abstract art. Brett Weston bridged the gap between representation and abstraction by creating images that were realistically rendered yet composed in such a way as to emphasize abstraction in composition and form. His accomplishments in photography could be seen as a key to understanding the basic tenants of abstract art as expressed by artists working in more obviously interpretive mediums. Merle Armitage wrote of Brett Weston’s work in 1956:  “Here are the patterns, the arrangements, the designs and the evocations sought by the finest abstract painters.”

Generally considered one of the finest printers in photography, Brett Weston produced sixteen portfolios of original photographs, starting with San Francisco in 1939. He believed passionately in the power of his original black and white prints and chose the photographic portfolio as the way to reach an expanded audience while still maintaining control over image quality.

Brett Weston’s photographs have been exhibited in hundreds of galleries and museums including the J. Paul Getty Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, George Eastman House, the Whitney Museum, Amon Carter Museum, National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Museum among others.

Scott Nichols Gallery

www.scottnicholsgallery.com

49 Geary St. #415
San Francisco, CA 94108
415- 788-4641
Copyright © 2011 Scott Nichols Gallery, All rights reserved.

(See the photograph large: Marble Gorge Near Nankoweap Creek, Grand Canyon National Park.)

Marble Gorge Near Nankoweap Creek, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, copyright by Philip Hyde.

Time and the River Flowing: Grand Canyon by Francois Leydet, in the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series, came out in 1964 in response to two proposed dams, one just above and one just below Grand Canyon National Park. Time and The River Flowing formed out of a river trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, planned for that creative purpose. The river trip headed by David Brower, Executive Director of the Sierra Club and head of the Sierra Club books publishing program, and led on the river by lead boatman Martin Litton, has become legendary for including passengers who were the who’s who of landscape photography, conservation and the natural sciences of the time.

The illustrators of Time and The River Flowing were Katie Lee with one photograph, Joseph Wood Krutch and Eliot Porter each with two images, Daniel B. Luten with three, P. T. Reilly with four, Ansel Adams contributed five color photographs, Richard Norgaard six, Joseph C. Hall and Martin Litton, using the name Clyde Thomas, each provided nine photographs, David Brower had 10, Clyde Childress made 19 of the images and Philip Hyde supplied 31 of the book’s illustrations.

Published only two years after the introduction of color to Sierra Club Books, Time and the River Flowing contained only color photographs, even by Ansel Adams. As a result many of the best black and white photographs of the Grand Canyon by the artists above never received the same level of recognition, even though they were in some cases stronger images.

Now Philip Hyde’s black and white photographs of the Grand Canyon can potentially be more widely seen. See the new portfolio added to Philip Hyde Photography of Grand Canyon National Park original black and white prints. See also several more of Philip Hyde’s best black and white photographs of the Grand Canyon by visiting the portfolios “Black and White Vintage & Digital Prints 1,” “Black and White Vintage & Digital Prints 2” and “Vintage Black and White Prints & Raw Scans.”

For more information on the making of Philip Hyde’s original darkroom black and white prints see, “About Vintage Black and White Prints.”

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.  –John Muir

McClure Meadow, Evolution Valley, Kings Canyon National Park, Sierra Nevada, California, copyright 1970 by Philip Hyde. Deardorff 5X7 Large Format Camera. Widely exhibited and published including in "The Range of Light" with quotes by John Muir. Still available as an original vintage darkroom black and white print. Three 8X10 vintage prints left available for sale at this time. Other original vintage black and white prints in the "Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sierra Portfolio" also available in limited quantities. Please inquire for details.

(See the photograph larger: “McClure Meadow, Evolution Valley, Kings Canyon.”)

In his preface to The Range of Light, with Selections from the Writings of John Muir, my father pioneer landscape photographer Philip Hyde wrote about choosing photographs and John Muir quotes for his book. To read more about The Range of Light see the blog post, “Philip Hyde’s Tribute To John Muir.” Philip Hyde described his process in the Preface to The Range of Light:

It was a labor of love rereading John Muir some fifty years after my first reading. In searching for quotations to use with my photographs, I found the same inspiration and delight I recall feeling in the past—more, really, since my love for the mountains has only increased with the familiarity experience has given me… I wanted to go out again, to go in further, to explore all the places I had missed, and I wanted to improve on the pictures I had made to illustrate the heightened savor I was finding in his words. In nearly a lifetime of returning again and again, I began to feel I had barely scratched the surface. But over the life of the project, my view began to shift from unfulfilled desire to gratitude. I was coming to see that I would never satisfy my thirst for wildness and mountains. I could never make all the definitive photographs of them. But hadn’t I already had more than most men’s share of them? In general, the matching of quotations with pictures should be understood as equivalents—some descriptive, some expressing an experience of feeling that seems to parallel in some way one which John Muir describes. Others are visual equivalents of the words in less direct, more personal ways. There was a basic purpose in all this: my hope to somehow discharge a little of my debt to John Muir for his keen observation that informed and sharpened my own; for his words that amplified my feeling and experience, and colored them both brighter; for his boundless enthusiasm for Nature; for his clear vision that it would not be enough, living in an exploitive culture just to love Nature, but essential for Nature’s continued existence unimpaired, that one work to carry those “good tidings” to others who would, in their turn, work to protect Nature.

In 1938, just before he turned 17, Philip Hyde first visited Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Nevada. On that trip he made his first photographs with a Kodak Readyset 120 camera that he borrowed from his sister. He brought the camera along thinking he would photograph his Boy Scout friends, but when he had the film developed, he discovered that most of the photographs were of nature rather than people, a tendency that stayed with him throughout his career. For more on Philip Hyde’s early trips to Yosemite National Park, see the blog post, “Lake Tenaya And Yosemite National Park.” His wilderness photographs participated in more environmental campaigns than any other photographer of his time and helped to establish the genre of landscape photography as a recognized art form while his photographs served as the backbone of the groundbreaking Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series. The Exhibit Format Series, invented by Ansel Adams, David Brower and Nancy Newhall, became known for popularizing the coffee table photography book and helping to establish many national parks and wilderness areas of the Western U. S. Beginning with participation in the first book in the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series, This Is The American Earth, Philip Hyde went on to publish more photographs in more volumes in the series than any of the other photographers, including Eliot Porter, who was known for illustrating the best selling book of the series, In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World with quotes by Henry David Thoreau. To read more about these photographers and the development of the Sierra Club Books Exhibit Format Series see the blog post, “How Color Came To Landscape Photography.”

Though the various book projects influenced a generation of photographers and brought his work acclaim, Philip Hyde himself said, “I didn’t want to be distracted by fame.” He was more apt to spend his time working on any of many local environmental campaigns around the West, rather than talking to photography galleries, museum curators or photography agents. Although the best art museums and collectors did take interest in his work, often through recommendations from mentors such as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White; Philip Hyde, until recently has been less well-known than some other leading landscape photographers. Now for the first time in more than a decade, Philip Hyde’s vintage black and white prints, as well as his original dye transfer and Cibachrome prints are offered by a select number of the world’s best photography galleries. To read more about the galleries who carry Philip Hyde’s work see the blog posts in the category “Galleries for Philip Hyde” or go to “About Vintage And Black And White Prints.” A limited number of his vintage and original prints are still available for viewing and acquisition on the Philip Hyde Photography website. As we scan Philip Hyde’s original vintage black and white prints and film, a few new images, and on a few rare occasions a whole new portfolio is added to PhilipHyde.com. The selection of photographs chosen for the new “Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sierra Black and White Portfolio” were carefully reviewed by many experts in the art world, in photography galleries and by other professional photographers. Please enjoy and write me as you have questions.

What writers, artists or other influences helped you connect to a place?

Grasses, Clouds Reflected, Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park, copyright 2009 by David Leland Hyde. Nikon D90. This photograph and a select group of others will be available soon as limited edition archival fine art digital prints. A friend, who already acquired a 16X20 print of this photograph, said it helps remind her clients of tranquility.

Something fascinating happened to me over the last few months. I have not listened to the Radio or watched TV. This has created a strange, yet significantly measurable positive effect. I know, I know, it is best to stay informed, to be aware of what is going on. Or is it? Is the news a good representative cross-section of events in the world, or does it have a sensationalized negative slant? Could you miss something critical by Trashing Your Television? Probably not. I have discovered that the most significant events seem to get relayed to me by people I run across during the day anyway.

I tuned into NPR for the first time in many months around the beginning of August, just in time to hear about a week-long plummet of European stock markets. Just as I did in October 2008, I sat down in shock and fear. Then I gathered myself out of a knee-jerk response and opened my heart as big as I could and first said yes to the fear, then let it gradually leave and dissipate.

Ever since I have been keeping Radio Silence and Trashing Television. I find that I have a much more positive outlook than many others I talk to, and guess what? Remaining News Media Free isn’t just a Pollyanna perspective either. It produces a measurable difference in the world. Staying positive has produced positive results. I have sold six prints this week including one of Dad’s vintage black and white prints. I also developed a pending situation that will bring as many as 20 more print sales in the near future.

Remember that what began all of this was the bank policy of giving loans to under qualified people. Where does bank policy come from? There is no conspiracy, just follow the money. Look to who is making policy. The Great Depression in the 1920s was the largest transfer of wealth in history away from the middle and lower classes to the richest corporate shareholders. A whole new brand of transfer is on again now.

There is another reason the economy has to take a dive this century. And I do mean a whole century long “managed collapse.” Get used to it. The maximum number of clean energy sources available can provide only about 30 percent of the energy on which the current oil based economy runs. To make the transition to a clean energy society, we have to operate the world economy on 30 percent of the energy we do now. That means we have to trim 70 percent of the fat.

Through it all, Photography will survive.

Will you survive in photography?

Will your photography survive?

Some photographers will thrive and some will fail.

Will you thrive?

Part One of a Three Part Series

On The Arts, Photography, Working With Galen Rowell And Personal Style

Interview Conducted By Phone May 25, 2011

Full Moon Setting Over Rock Outcrop Near Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park, California, copyright 2010 Gary Crabbe.

(See the photograph large Click Here.)

DAVID LELAND HYDE: I read your articles on working with Galen Rowell on Naturescapes.net and on your Enlightened Images blog. In your website bio it said you started taking photographs while you were going to college at Humboldt State University.

GARY CRABBE: That’s correct. It was one of those art electives to make me a more well-rounded square. It was basic black and white photography 101 and an introduction to composition, how to use the enlargers in a darkroom, process film and all that fun stuff.

HYDE: Did you make your own prints?

GARY CRABBE: I certainly did for that class. Also, I started taking photos for the Theater Department in 1988 or 1989. I bought a bathroom darkroom setup. I’d literally shoot photos of a stage production in dress rehearsal. I would get up on stage with a little old manual Minolta X-370 camera, some 3200 speed Tri-X film, shoot without flash, hand held. Because I was also an actor and director I had a sense of what to shoot. Then I’d run home and print 20 or so 8X10 RC prints that night and give them to the theater department the next morning. The art department mounted them on mat boards and by 5:00 pm the Theater Department would have a full exhibit of my prints in the lobby of the theater for opening night of the play.

HYDE: When did you start photographing in color?

GARY CRABBE: Not at all until much later. I had been working as a breakfast cook all through college and after, flipping pancakes, cooking omelet’s, all that. I was so sick of it. I was screaming profanities every morning and my wife said, “Just go for a different job.” I looked through the newspaper and applied for everything I could. One of the ads I applied for in that time just said, “Outdoor Photo Agency,” and, “must like dogs.” I didn’t know what an “Outdoor Photo Agency” was, but I like photos, dogs and the outdoors. I sent in an application, got called for an interview, showed up to the place in Albany, California, before they had the gallery in Emeryville and there was Galen Rowell’s name and the Mountain Light Gallery logo hanging over the front door. I instantly recognized it because one of the very few photographic exhibitions I’d ever gone to on my own was Galen’s Mountain Light exhibit, when it showed at the California Academy of Sciences. I got the job. I was immediately thrust in as this $7 an hour file boy, where my job was to take the slides that were coming back from magazines and publishers and put them back in their spots in the file drawers. It was an intensive sudden exposure to Galen’s work. Then I went off for three weeks on my honeymoon to Hawaii.

HYDE: Your article said that when you came back the woman that had been running the stock department for Galen Rowell had been fired. Why did they choose you? For the filing job, they didn’t want someone who was a photographer. But you would think that for the stock job they would want a photographer.

GARY CRABBE: You’d think that, but they had been very badly burned by some photographers that they had previously had in their employ. They wouldn’t hire another photographer.

HYDE: How did they get burned?

GARY CRABBE: One photographer actually had the gall to take Galen Rowell’s Rainbow Over The Potala Palace photo out of the office and make his own prints of it. One photographer was caught submitting his own images to clients and making sales through Mountain Light, of his own stuff, when they were supposed to be selling Galen’s work.

HYDE: How do you feel your background in theater and what you learned there ties into photography? And the second part of the question is: Did Galen and Barbara Rowell believe your experience with theater might be an asset to choosing photographs or being the stock manager?

GARY CRABBE: I think it was the idea that I had a broader exposure to the Arts, with a capital “A.” I had some basic interest in photography, but I had absolutely zero interest in being a photographer. When I graduated college, if someone said in five years or ten years, I would be a professional photographer, I would have said that they were out of their gourd. I think probably my specific directorial talent and theater background translates into photography in that it was a form of visual storytelling. We had text, granted, that we don’t have in photography, but the idea was that you would use actors and sets to create a composition of a particular moment. When I was photographing the actors on stage, I’d be waiting for that decisive moment. I would be able to communicate the emotional content of the scene, without the text, but still get it across so when the people were walking into the lobby that night, they would be able to build some anticipation. When the photos were used for publicity, it would hopefully spark interest.

(For more on the decisive moment in photography see Gary Crabbe’s recent article on Pro Photo Resource, “Seeking Out Difinitive Moments In Outdoor, Nature And Travel Photography.”)

HYDE: You wrote that Galen Rowell encouraged the use of a tripod and approached 35mm photography with the same deliberate, meticulous set up of the shot as they call it, as people who use a large format camera. I thought, maybe that’s key to why Galen’s compositions look like he could have made them with a larger camera. At the same time you wrote, “Watching Galen’s approach to a scene was like watching a creative dynamo. I always likened it to the cartoon of the Tasmanian Devil with a camera.” When Galen Rowell came on a scene and he decided to make a photograph, what did he do?

Sunrise Light On Coastal Fog Over Hills Near The Mouth Of The Klamath River, Redwood National Park, California, copyright 2010 by Gary Crabbe.

GARY CRABBE: Galen would often tell his students in a workshop that when they were shooting landscapes they should take their time and treat it as deliberately as someone setting up a large format camera. His own way of pursuing photography was a bit different. Galen, in semi-jest, described photography as an action sport. His brain was turbo charged. His experience allowed him to work and recognize things at a quick pace. When it becomes innate, you walk up on a scene and you know if you need to change lenses and when. You know which filter you want to use. You know you need a fast shutter speed. These thoughts are coming almost instantaneously. You are reaching in the bag and you’re not even thinking about it, your body is doing it. That’s because you have absorbed the skills and the science of your art to a point that it is deeply engrained. That’s the way Galen approached and did his own work, but for students who hadn’t reached that level, he taught the deliberate landscape. Galen would say, “Oh, I like this,” and he would set up and make the shot. Then he’d say, “Ooh, I like this,” and he’d go get that shot. “Ooh, I like this over here,” and he’d run 100 yards and set up another shot. He was doing what he advocated the student‘s to do, but at 8X speed. That’s the Tasmanian edge. In one of his video’s he’s literally running by the shore of Mono Lake going from one spot to another. His landscape photography was an action sport, because he was so active getting to the right place at the right time, or trying to connect whatever was happening here with whatever was happening over there.

HYDE: My father, Philip Hyde, had a more contemplative approach. I don’t know if you’ve seen my blog post, “Galen Rowell And Outdoor Photographer Style.” It compares my dad’s style, which was very yin, meditative and receptive to Galen Rowell’s approach, which as you say and as he wrote was much more of a yang, create the photograph you want style: “I’m visualizing. I’m going to go out there and based on the situation I’m going over here and I’m getting this and going after that.” I also notice there are differences between the approach that comes out of using a large format camera and using a 35 mm camera. For example, I’ve only ever photographed with a 35mm camera, I guess I did actually take a few photographs with a medium format, but I’ve never photographed with a large format camera… I notice if I’m photographing a car, I’ll make 30 photographs of that one car. Whereas, my dad used to sort of frown on that approach to photography. He frowned on just going out and banging away, making loads of photographs, roll after roll after roll. But I find that’s what I do. The smaller camera’s more conducive to that, but is that what Galen did?

GARY CRABBE: I think as you point out the key to the difference in approach was format. Galen would say to students, “Oh, there’s too much foreground,” or “Oh, how come you didn’t see this ugly stick down here,” or “You’ve got all this nasty stuff going along the edges.” You’re right, with large format, you only have one frame. You may shoot five frames your whole afternoon out. You have to be very deliberate about things like: Is there anything along the edges that I don’t like? Is there a nice visual pathway? Is the composition right? Is it better from here or is it better over there? That’s the approach Galen was trying to encourage his students to take. He was bringing them to a better level of photography through a more deliberate cognitive awareness of what they were doing. With Galen though, he would go out with one, two or three primary guiding ideas that set his compass needle and the rest of it was responsive. Once he got out to the spot where his pre-visualization took him, active visualization took over. That’s when he would turn on his little dynamo. So it was a little bit of both. He’d have a very strong idea with elements A, B, C and D. He would go to the field at this time, somewhere in this general angle and then he’d start looking at, “OK, there’s A and there’s B and there’s C. And if I want to get A, B and C together I need to move myself over there.” And that’s how I learned to do it too. With the 35 mm format, he bracketed exposures and composition. He might go out on an afternoon run with his camera and he might take one photograph or he might take six rolls. If nothing stopped him in his tracks, he’d just keep going. If something went, “Wow, this is pretty good,” he’d stop and work it.

HYDE: How is your approach similar to Galen’s and how is it different?

GARY CRABBE: My approach is very similar to Galen’s in that it is responsive to what I am seeing. I use a general idea to get me where I want to be. I’ve got this picture in my mind with this and that. That to gets me to the place. Then, much like Galen I hop from “Oh, I like this, I like that, I like this.” The primary difference is that Galen was so incredibly driven, working each scene, active, like a sport and a lifestyle. I’m a little more relaxed and Buddhist. I like taking my time on trails and I like to stop. I have a personal, slower pace, not only out on the trails, but in life in general. Galen was a dynamo. Sometimes I’m just happy to be a cow under a shade tree in the middle of summer.

Continued In the blog post, “Interview Of Gary Crabbe Part 2.”

Corn Lily Leaves, Proposed North Cascades National Park, Washington, 1959 copyright Philip Hyde. One of the original vintage black and white prints on consignment at the Peter Fetterman Gallery.

The Peter Fetterman Galleryhouses one of the largest inventories of classic 20^th Century photography in the United States. The Peter Fetterman Gallery is also the number one photography dealer in Southern California and a member of AIPAD, the Association of International Photography Art Dealers.

Peter Fetterman came to the Los Angeles area from his birth city of London, England over 30 years ago. Peter Fetterman’s first exposure to still photography, through Hollywood while he worked as a filmmaker, interested him in pursuing the art of photography as a collector. Over 20 years ago, Peter Fetterman established his first photography gallery. In 1994, he became a pioneer tenant of Bergamot Station, the Santa Monica Center of the Arts when it first opened.

The diverse holding of the Peter Fetterman Gallery today include work by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sabastiao Salgado, Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro, Willy Ronis, Andre Kerstez, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Lillian Bassman and now pioneer landscape photographer Philip Hyde.

The Getty Museum And Documentary Photography

The Getty Museum of Los Angeles recently acquired a major selection black and white prints by the social documentary photographer Sabastiao Salgado. Peter Fetterman is largely responsible for the development of Sabastiao Salgado in the US and in Europe. Sabastiao Salgado, originally from Brazil, now lives in Paris. He was a photojournalist for such agencies as Sygma, Gamma and in 1979 he joined Magnum. The Wikipedia article on Sebastiao Salgado said, “He is particularly noted for his social documentary photography of workers in less developed nations.” Photographer Hal Gould, founding member of AIPAD and of Camera Obscura Gallery of Denver, Colorado, said that Sabastiao Salgado is one of the 21^st Century’s most important photographers. Hal Gould gave Sabastiao Salgado his first US Exhibition at Camera Obscura Gallery. To Read more about Camera Obscura Gallery see the blog post, “Hal Gould And Camera Obscura: 50 Years Of Photography Advocacy.” Philip Hyde exhibited at Camera Obscura Gallery twice: once in the 1970s as part of a group show and once in September-October 2010 as one of the last exhibitions at Camera Obscura Gallery see the blog posts, “Philip Hyde’s Mountain Landscapes at Camera Obscura Gallery,” or “Vintage And Digital Prints Together In One Exhibition.”

More recently Sabastiao Salgado’s Genesis project on landscapes and wildlife in their original settings helped spark Peter Fetterman’s interest in representing the best landscape photographers who made their own film era vintage prints. Philip Hyde was one of the few photographers of the 20^th Century who was considered a master of both color landscape photography and black and white photography, as well as hand print making in both mediums.

Peter Fetterman On Collecting Photography

What Peter Fetterman advises about collecting photography:

One of the wonderful things about photography is that it is still possible to build up a significant collection for relatively small sums of money, if you go about it in a smart way. You may love Modigliani, or Rubens, or Rembrandt or Matisse but for most of us that would be fantasy collecting. Fortunately it is still possible to acquire images by the equivalent masters of photography, at an accessible level, and in a market that has so far only ever gone up in value.

‘How do I go about it?’ you may be wondering. The best advice I give my new clients is to do what I call “photo aerobics.” Exercise your eye. Take every opportunity to look at as many images as you can, be it in museum shows, galleries, art fairs, and build up a library of photography books. As in any field of collecting the more knowledge you can acquire the greater the pleasure you are going to experience from the whole process. Find a dealer you can communicate with who is willing to share their own knowledge and expertise with you. Finding the photographs that inspire you is a highly creative endeavor in itself, and can even be an act of self-discovery. As your learning curve grows you will soon understand and appreciate the difference between a silver print and a platinum print, a vintage print and a modern print.

Happily it is still possible to buy an important print in the $1000-$5000 range, and by important I mean a photograph that is going to have longevity not only in terms of the image itself, but also the reputation and importance of the artist. To do this today in any other medium is virtually impossible. This will of course not always be the case with photography either. The realities of increasing demand as more and more collectors enter the arena, will mean a diminishing supply of available of affordable prints of classic images by recognized masters.

Peter Fetterman Is Now Working To Develop Philip Hyde Collections In More Major Museums

The Peter Fetterman Gallery offers a large selection of Philip Hyde vintage black and white silver prints and vintage color dye transfer and Cibachrome prints, most of which are still in the price range mentioned above. Peter Fetterman has also already begun talking to more world-class museums about Philip Hyde. World class venues that have shown or collected Philip Hyde include The Smithsonian, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Time-Life, The Cosmos Club, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, University of Arizona in Tucson Center For Creative Photography, National Geographic Society, George Eastman House, Oakland Museum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Academy of Sciences, Yosemite National Park Visitor’s Center, Grand Canyon National Park Visitor’s Center, the Ansel Adams Gallery, Weston Gallery, Alaska State Museum and many others.