Rather than an autobiography, this page should attempt a description of my artistic intent. Before I get to that, however, I must say something about what has been on my mind as I work through my photographic journey.

Beauty. You can’t explain it. Everyone describes it differently. Yet it undeniably exists; a mystery certainly. Everywhere you look, Beauty exists in the Universe. Sublime beauty. Terrible beauty. Often a consequence of some horrific cataclysm, Beauty is ubiquitous. Even ugliness has a kind of Beauty; think of it as an opportunity for the intervention of kindness, all too often ignored. Behind every photograph I make, I seek to place the face of Beauty within it.

I have been deeply influenced by Freeman Patterson, a Canadian photographer who lives in New Brunswick. Freeman wrote a thesis for the MDiv, which raised the question as to whether Ultimate Concern could be expressed in the art form of photography. Ultimate Concern, a concept originated by Paul Tillich expressing that which is most important, that which touches the Divine within us: ultimate mystery, profound truth, the ineffable. I believe Beauty is of Ultimate Concern. Therefore, I seek to express Ultimate Concern in my photography; it is a journey not undertaken lightly and I think best expressed by Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-RF

If my work touches you, then this has made all the difference.

Biography

I became interested in photography as a youngster, enthralled as many should be by the work of Ansel Adams. I set up a small darkroom under the stairs of our rented house and, fascinated with the wonder of seeing an image develop before my eyes, I fantasized about becoming a pro photographer. However, Nature intervened, as she often does, and I developed wicked allergies to the chemicals used in a wet darkroom. Oh well... I then spent more than 40 years as a biomedical scientist and clinical immunologist and did not return to photography until the digital age came around. Now, I have been reclaimed by a long-lost love!

My scientific career included interests in viral immunology, influenza and Hepatitis C viruses, along with transplantation immunology. I was a professor at Georgetown, Medical College of Wisconsin, and University of Utah.

My mother was an artist and made a living as a painter. She would often ask me when I was going to really do this; I only wish she could have lived to see my first show. Although I have no formal training in art or photography, I have gleaned all that I can from books, internet sources, and fabulous teachers and friends, among them Mark Alberhasky and, of course, Freeman. A friend and photographer, Hal Wallace encouraged me at a critical juncture; if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be doing this today. Christophe Potworowski is a much appreciated friend who took my search for Ultimate Concern seriously.

Required Reading:

Tao of Photography: Seeing Beyond Seeing, Gross and Shapiro
Photography and the Art of Seeing, Freeman Patterson
The Camera, The Negative, The Print, trilogy by Ansel Adams
The Digital Negative, Jeff Schewe
Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing, Margaret Livingstone
I am an avid reader of popular works on particle physics and cosmology.
If you haven’t read anything by Albert Einstein, you should: Relativity
The Religious Sense, first in a trilogy by Luigi Giussani
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John along with letters by Paul Anything by CS Lewis

Technical Trivia

I shoot Nikon exclusively, partly because now I can afford it, but mostly because it feels good in my hands. I am a Nikon Professional Services member. I have experimented with cell phone cameras and achieved astonishingly good results at times. The best camera is the one you have with you. My current kit consists of two Z7ii bodies one affixed with the 24-120 S and the other with the 100-400 S. This means no lens changing in the field!

I also have been captured by Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, in which I do virtually all of my post processing. An essential tool I use on almost every image is the luminosity masking system, TK Actions Panel, invented by Tony Kuyper and greatly elucidated by Sean Bagshaw. Additional tools that I use frequently include NIK Silver Effex Pro, DxO PureRAW and Gigapixel, Topaz Sharpen and DeNoise AI. If you want optimal exposure FastRawViewer and RawDigger by LibRaw are essential tools.

I print using a Canon ipf8400 and PRO-1000. This necessitates a wide-gamut monitor calibrated using an X-Rite i1Studio. For starting to understand color theory and mechanics, the best resource I’ve found is Andrew Rodney’s digitaldog.net; he won’t lead you wrong. Finally, for paper, I use a baryta type, usually from Canon, Epson, or Red River and for canvas, you can’t go wrong with Epson Premium Luster although I am experimenting with matte, Breathing Color Chromata White. Frames and canvas stretchers I get from Frame Destination. Write to me if you have questions.