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2008
Current Work
While visiting with the farmer and rancher subjects of the book, Marin Farm Families; Stories and Recipes in 2005, I became intrigued with the Marin landscape in a new, more intimate way. I began seeing it more clearly for it’s uniqueness; it’s pure California-ness; it’s Marin-ness. I never tire of seeing it over and over again, in the morning light, the midday light, the sunset. I’ve visited many places I have photographed a number times, although I don't always take photographs. I see the landscape and the life upon it as metaphors and mysterious indications of the source of myths, metaphysics and inspiration. I don't consider my photographs necessarily landscape images nor do I consider myself a landscape photographer. My photographs are a quest for icons, a quest for the best subjective representation of my point of view, a quest for envisioning something more than a flat, two-dimensional graphic while always wanting to freeze the perfect moment in the time of light and reflectance.
A solo exhibition of the environmental photographs and farm/ranch portraits made from August 2005 to July 2007 was mounted at the Toby’s Feed Barn Gallery, Point Reyes Station, California during the month of August 2007. Fifty-two landscape and still life images and 23 portraits ranging in size from 11" x 14" to 20" x 24" were displayed. The portraits remain on permanent display at Toby’s Feed Barn.
Technical
I segued into digital photography in 1995 and have rarely shot film since 1999. I currently use Canon 12 and 16 mega pixel digital cameras and Canon lenses for all my photographic assignments and artwork. I use a Canon 5D converted to only capture infrared heat signature(IR) to produce the IR black and white images in my portfolio. Some of my printed images are derived from scanned color transparencies, Polaroid prints, silver prints, black and white negatives, Polaroid transfer prints and Betterlight digital camera files. My prints are produced on Epson 4800 and 7800 K3 Pigment Ink printers using Epson, Harman, Innova, Somerset, Museum Digital and other archival papers for a nominal resistance to fading of 100 to 300 years depending on how they are displayed or preserved.
Biography
I was born near the Sulphur Mountains in Madill, Oklahoma in 1947. My early school years were spent in Oklahoma, North Dakota, New Mexico, Ohio, Kansas, Texas and Southern California and I graduated from high school in Stephenville, Newfoundland, Canada. After a four-year commitment to the USAF as a Medic in San Antonio, Texas, I worked for 10 years as a respiratory therapist in Central and Northern California. All through school I had been involved in the arts—photographing, painting and playing guitar in a band. I left the medical world behind and earned BFA and MFA degrees in Theatre at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. I worked at a theater on the East Coast and returned to San Francisco in the early 1980s to start a career in theatrical set design and lighting. While owning and operating a successful scenic design company, I rekindled my passion for photography, eventually opening my first studio in 1987 and selling the scenic design studio in 1990. I currently own and operate Ken Smith Photography in San Rafael, California.
I studied with acclaimed photographers Ruth Bernhard, Morri Camhi, Michael Kenna, Larry Sultan and Stephen Johnson. I have taught photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Ken Smith
June, 2008
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