Summer of 2010- Aspen and California's HWY 1

"The Hills Ranch" Aspen, Colorado - © 2010 Jim McHugh

    It's been an exciting time this summer photographing and printing a variety of new pictures.  While in Colorado for an August exhibit in Aspen I was fortunate to spent several days photographing mountain landscapes with my Speed Graphic and Polaroid. My first challenge was how to approach this subject matter with my camera in a fresh way? 

"Maroon Lake" Aspen, Colorado   © 2010 Jim McHugh

   I will forever be moved and influenced by 19th. century pictoralist photography. I can almost feel the photographer at work. Because of the primitive materials and technologies available at the time, photographic results were completely unpredictable.  Polaroid is very similar, every image has a slightly different different quality.  The pictures of photographer Edweard Muybridge and landscape painter Albert Bierstadt  always fascinate me. There is so much emotion in the imagery. Muybridge is often defined by his “motion” studies, but to me his landscapes are the most stunningly. They are dark and powerfully compelling! Bierstadt’s canvases of Yosemite Valley are filled with vision! So much color and imagination. More than most contemporary photography can produce.

 With Muybridge  and other Pictoralist's work there is such a sense of struggle and triumph in the imagery. Not only must the photographer have the  "Eye" to see; but the prints themselves are so precious, difficult to make! They look three dimensional, like charcoal drawings.

"Lighthouse at Pigeon Point #1" © Jim McHugh

By merging older analog systems and digital technologies I am trying  to create in my prints a slight confusion, an uncertainty. I hope the viewer’s eye will  linger longer on the surface. More like a radio drama than a film; the listener is allowed to supply the unseen. I will be heading back to Colorado this week.

"Skeleton at Scotts Creek - Highway 1" © 2010 Jim McHugh

  

"Pigeon Point" © 2010 Jim McHugh

             

354 N. Bedford Drive- Beverly Hills, CA. 90210 -310 278 4400

Julius Shulman

Architectural Photographer Julius Shulman

"He, in my opinion and the opinions of many, is the most important architectural photographer in history. He elevated what you might consider a commercial genre to a fine art,"

Gallery owner and long time friend, Craig Krull

I photographed Julius in November of 2008. The camera he is holding is the one he began shooting with in 1936.

His photographs are examples of what the very best can be. Any serious photography involving architecture must be looked at in relationship to the work of Julius Shulman. His way of photographing will never again be duplicated.

A Master of a series of technically demanding skills he was able to capture with a large format camera in a single shot on a sheet of film the perfect picture- meticulously lit and balanced. But above all else it was his vision as an artist that defined an era.

With his passing one senses a great continent has slipped back into the sea.

Julius Shulman 1910-2009

photo: David Sirh

"We went out to breakfast after the photographs were taken...at age 98 Julius spoke excitedly about the shoot he had just completed the day before... the assignments he had coming up...and all the while he was finishing off a very large stack of pancakes... Some days remain forever!"

From 'A Photographer's Life: Just One More'

Polaroid Photograph of Julius Shulman 11"x 14" - ink on Innova archival paper

First published in Art and Living Magazine, Special Artists Issue - 2008

© 2008 Jim McHugh www.McHughArtistsArchives.com