Category Archives: Commentary

Luminous Landscape: Charles Cramer Workshops

Seen at the Michael Reichmann’s Luminous Landscape web site:

I am fortunate to count among my friends some of the top photographic instructors in the world. I list their workshops on my Workshops page, and from time to time feature something new that they’re doing.

Charles Cramer is one of America’s most famous landscape photographers and teachers. For years he and Bill Atkinson have been teaching printing workshops together, but now Bill has decided to retire from these and so Charlie is striking out on his own.

You can find out more about this new series of printing workshops here.

I’m also fortunate to know Charlie. Everything Reichmann says is true, and I can vouch for Charlie’s teaching skills, having been the grateful recipient of some individual time with him in his studio. I’ve also been through his booklet on digital post-processing – it distills more useful and practical information into a small text than anything else I’ve seen, and I regularly consult it.

If you are looking to learn from an outstanding photographer, master printmaker, and fine teacher I highly recommend Charlie’s workshops.

Trading Prints: Jim Goldstein

During the latter part of 2008 I posted more than once about my participation in Jim M. Goldstein’s Buying Prints project. I’m a bit slow about this stuff, but I get to it eventually!

Earlier this fall I wrote about meeting up with Edie Howe in Yosemite to trade one of my aspen photographs for one of her images from Mono Lake. Last week I finally managed to connect with Jim to make our trade – a copy of my Submerged Boulders, Lake, and Cliffs for a copy of his Primitive Coastline. Jim is a fine landscape and nature/wildlife photographer and also quite the photography writer, blogger, and podcaster. (Follow the link in the first paragraph back to his web site to find out more.)

One of the great things about doing the print exchanges for me is that I get to meet photographers who I otherwise only know from their online personalities. It was a special pleasure to meet Jim and his wife Cindy in their home, talk photography a bit, take a look at some of Jim’s work that currently only exists on his computer, and then to accompany the two of them to a holiday party where I met more photographers. Thanks Jim and Cindy!

Tis’ the Season to be… Printing

As a college faculty member I have the good fortune to have some significant time away from the classroom during the holidays. I’ve been spending the past few weeks doing a lot of printing. So far I’ve printed about 50 photographs that previously existed only as images on the screen. Yes, there is a difference!

In fact, I write this as another four prints slowly work their way through the printer. I planned to drive a good distance to do some shooting today, but it looks like I’ll have to pick a closer location – since I’ve still got a half hour or so of printing time to go and it is already nearly 2:30.