'Through One's Eyes'

I came to photography early in life. In my teens, I went through some of my parents’ drawers and found a stack of black and white proofs. I didn’t know it before, but my dad had been a professional photographer as he studied for his degree in electrical engineering at the University of Kentucky. He’d go door-to-door with a swatch of black velvet and convince the woman of the house to drape it around her bare shoulders for a portrait. He chuckled when he recalled the story. Seeing my interest, he gave me the Minolta 35mm film camera he had at the time and taught me the basics.

I had some artistic talent. As a child, I took lessons in oil painting and drawing faces with charcoal. People who saw my “work” encouraged me, and I dug in deeper. When I turned to photography, my dad built a black-and-white darkroom in our family room, and I learned the magic of developing film. Around 1971 or so, I took a photography class taught by a local dentist named Donald Huntsman, who excelled at fine art photography. Don was on speaking terms with Ansel Adams and Minor White. I studied the Zone System and composition with him and a small group of enthusiasts. My favorite photographers at the time included Adams, White, Paul Strand, and Edward Weston. My parents bought me the 14-volume series on photography by Time-Life books, and I poured through them again and again. I read about the WPA photographers, and I read Edward Weston’s daybooks.

Don curated a show in 1973 at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton, California, titled, “Through One’s Eyes,” a phrase Weston had used in his Daybook No. 2. The exhibit coincided with my graduation from high school. Seeing prints from the masters — including Ruth Bernhard, Wynn Bullock, Henry Gilpin, Eliot Porter, Aaron Siskind, Jerry Uelsmann, and Minor White — stunned me. I wanted nothing more than to shoot photos.

I considered the Brooks Institute but didn’t think we could afford it. So I moved away to Cal State Chico. I lost touch with Don after that, but I still have the booklet from the exhibition. Don’s love of light and shadow stuck with me.

I continued taking photos through college, earning my undergraduate degree in religious studies (primarily Eastern). I tried to find the zen in photography, without much success. A few years later I went to graduate school at the University of Oregon with plans to study photojournalism, but my father convinced me to study print reporting, which he considered more intellectually challenging. I earned a couple of master’s degrees in journalism and became adept at data analysis and its use for reporting. I made it my mission to investigate malfeasance and misfeasance, and made a decent living writing and editing for newspapers.

But I never lost my desire to make photographs.

I had worked for awhile in Singapore and bought several thousand dollars worth of photographic equipment. I managed to freelance some photos to the Singapore Straits-Times, and I sold a few stories and photo packages to Black Belt magazine. But my photojournalism over the years was sporadic at best. Then, it came to a halt in 1989, when all of my gear was stolen. I lacked insurance and couldn’t afford to replace it.

I married in 1990 and started a family. Over the years, I bought an early edition Canon Rebel film camera, and a used Canon G4 digital camera. I shot mostly snapshots and family mementos. My sister Diana felt sorry for me and in 2000 or so, she gave me a Canon DSLR and I began to shoot seriously again.

In 2012, my wife got sick with a fatal disease called frontotemporal dementia. After she passed, I bought a Canon 70D and a couple of cheap kit lenses and began making progress. I eventually replaced it with a Canon 5D Mark IV and a bunch of used lenses from my photojournalist colleagues. I shot my friends in martial arts and ballroom dancing, gradually improving my skills.

Then a couple of years ago, I discovered Daniel Norton and Seth Miranda LastXWitness on Adorama’s YouTube channel. I became obsessed with learning studio portraiture and off-camera lighting. I bought inexpensive softboxes and speedlights, eventually replacing them with Profoto gear. I finally got the nerve to ask people to sit for me. This, I decided, is what I want to do. So I formed Danzante Photography LLC and planned to quit my journalism job this year to pursue photography full time.

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 abruptly changed my plans. I’m still a working journalist in Minneapolis. But once we get through this I plan to retire and go full time with my photography business. Meantime, stay healthy. I hope to see you then.