NZ Visual Diary - entry 121

land and sea - Viaduct Harbour

I am (mostly) a self-taught photographer. I qualify my statement with the adverb ‘mostly’ in that I did enrol, during one of New Zealand’s COVID lock-downs, in an online class offered by Langara College in Vancouver (Canada). An architectural photographer whom I so greatly admire (both person and artistic output) offered a course in fine art photography.

The instructor, Sharon Tennenbaum, trained as a civil engineering in Israel and then emigrated to Vancouver where she worked as a civil engineering building bridges until, after a twenty-five year career, she acted upon a festering realisation that she would rather be photographing bridges and not helping to design them.

I learned so much from Sharon’s course.

I have also participated in some location-based photography workshops, my two favourite being those offered by Willard Clay (in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina) and Ralph Nordstrom (based in the Pacific coastline of Southern California).

I principally hone my modest artistic skill by studying the work of accomplished photographers. I am attracted to both colour and black & white photography, and I have favourites in both genres, but two photographers stand out for me.

In black & white photography, Fan Ho is at the top of my list, not just for his remarkable ability as a black & white photographer but also because of his choice of subject matter - urban photography, in his circumstance Hong Kong.

My favourite colour photographer is Saul Leiter, a painter turned photographer who used both brush and camera to capture gorgeous abstract and impressionistic images of his beloved home New York City.

We learn, in varying measure, through imitation. This entry’s image is an imitative homage to Saul. Had our lives overlapped, I would have enjoyed being Saul’s friend and fellow street raconteur.