For the last 30 years or so, Mr. Wessel has been photographing the American West. Not the mountains and redwoods, but the parking lots, body builders, nude beaches and absurdly trimmed shrubbery. And the light.
He is having his moment. There have been shows lately at the Robert Mann and Charles Cowles galleries in New York. The exhibition here has about 80 mostly black-and-white prints that cover his whole career, one whose arc may make you scratch your head yet again at how distracted and fickle the art world can sometimes be.
He‚s a photographer‚s photographer. Born in 1942, he grew up in suburban New Jersey, then studied psychology at Penn State, borrowing a Leica one day from his girlfriend‚s brother. „It really knocked me out,‰ he has recalled. „I had never really seen how a camera could describe something.‰
Wessel’s work is currently on display at SFMOMA, a short drive for me – I need to go soon. (I saw Avedon’s American West photographs at Stanford last week – wow!)
“Building with Green Windows, Moonlight” — Night photography of a building with green windows under moonlight at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.
This photograph was originally posted here in 2007 with no descriptive commentary. While updating the website I added the following narrative on March 18, 2025.
I had my first serious taste of night photography back in the early 2000s, not long before I made this photograph. While reading about the Bay Area Flyway Festival, I saw an announcement of a free introduction to the genre by a group known as “The Nocturnes,” the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group led by Tim Baskerville. Intrigued, I signed up, not knowing quite what I was getting into, and headed up the the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard for the session. I learned a lot — including how vibrant the night photography community was, along with some technical stuff that helped me make successful photographs. I was hooked.
During the following years by interest in the genre deepened and I returned many times to photograph the (mostly) abandoned structures at Mare Island. This photograph was a bit of a lucky catch. I was doing long exposure, tripod-based work that included star trails. Most of the subjects here were lit by moonlight or dim outdoor lighting. But I came upon this building before it was closed up for the night, and the interior fluorescent lights were still glowing in the window — and were quite green by comparison to the moonlit ambient light. I set up, made a couple of exposures… and the lights were suddenly shut off. But I managed to get this image first.
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I had the opportunity to join Tim Baskerville and a great group of night photographers at Mare Island Naval Shipyard again last night. I had no idea there were so many folks doing night photography in the Bay Area – there must have been close to 30 photographers. Clearly Tim is the focal point for this group, nearly everyone there had been introduced to night photography through one of his classes or workshops. Visit The Nocturnes web site for more information.
We began at 2:00 in the afternoon with a daytime tour of the island. While it is now undergoing redevelopment (i.e. – real estate development) there are still vast portions of the island that are filled with old military and industrial sites and which make compelling photographic subjects.
After gathering to review participants’ photographs and then share pizza, the group’s evening photographic activities began. Below is the first photo I made, an image of the icon Mare Island smokestack shot in the last light of the day.
… I have a suggestion for Canon in re the “big” 20D/30D/40D question. (You know, the one causing untold neverending shuddupshuddupSHUDDUP existential anguish all over every Canon forum on the ‘net….)
The suggestion: drop it.
That’s right. Drop it altogether. Why does Canon need a camera in between the XTi (400D) and the 5D, anyway? Answer: maybe it doesn’t.
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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