“Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.”
“Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and the wonder surrounding him.”
“Good photography is knowing where to stand.”
These quotes by Ansel Adams, the famous photographer from California, described the once artful process of photography. The evolution of digital media and the advancement of computers have abolished that process. Dark rooms have been taken over by computer programs, and the mystery of what develops from a roll of film no longer exists.
Photographers are able to take hundreds of shots in a short period of time and see the results instantaneously. Such technological innovations have deadened the artistic techniques of photography, and transformed it into a redundant process of holding down the shutter button.
When N.C. State alumnus Bruce Watson decided it was time for a career change, he turned to his passion for photography. Instead of purchasing one of the newest cameras featuring the most mega-pixels and quickest shutter speed, he chose a camera that was a pioneer in photography. The view camera has been around for decades, but with progression of technology its popularity has seen a rapid decline. The view camera has certain advantages that ordinary 35mm and digital cameras can’t offer. For Watson, it was a matter of control, detail and the ability increase size with out compromising quality.
Watson graduated from NCSU with a mechanical engineering degree and a masters in integrated manufacturing systems. He worked in the industry for 25 years, succeeding in his field until he found himself jaded by the system.
“I got tired of it [the system], and I’m pretty expensive as an engineer. I couldn’t find a job. This is after the tech-boom and then tech-crash,” Watson said. He decided, after much consideration and debate, to follow his urge to become a photographer and an artist. His decision was not entirely spontaneous; Watson was exposed to cameras at a young age. “My father gave me an old Kodak instamatic when I was 12. He indulged me with as much film and pictures as I wanted. By the time I got into high school I wasn’t bad and I was still interested, and that actually got me into photography classes with some seniors,” Watson said. “One of the seniors worked at the News and Observer; he liked what I was doing and thought that I could do what he was doing, which was sports photography for the News and Observer. He got me an interview with one of the head photographers.”
This connection opened the door for Watson to learn firsthand the many steps to producing a photograph. “They offered me a job that didn’t pay much; every photo that got printed paid $5, but the biggie was though, they gave me a key to the building. So I could come in at three in the morning, use the dark room, use all the film you want–it’s free–all the paper you want, all the chemicals you want. Basically they just turned me loose,” Watson said.
The experience built the foundation of knowledge Watson fell back on when he found himself considering a career change. He knew he was capable of taking pictures, his only doubt was how they would be perceived.
“I was pretty burned out at that stage anyway, and I’ve always wanted to do this [photography] and I said ‘Why don’t I do it?–take the big plunge and see what I can do.'” Watson said. “Maybe I can do some good artwork that people will like and maybe not. The only way to find out is to take the plunge and try.” Watson’s engineering characteristics were a large influence on the type of camera he chose and how he went about taking his photographs. The ability to control the image with the use of physics and math is the reason he chose a four-by-five-view camera.
“There are a lot of mechanical aspects to using a view camera; the big thing you get with a view camera that you don’t get with a regular camera is that it separates the film plane from the plane of the lens. [With] a normal camera you have a hard body that encompasses the film and also acts as lens mount, so the relationship with the lens and film is exact and non-moving,” he said. “[With] a view camera you separate those two things, so I can tilt the lens relative to the plane of the film.”
One of the drawbacks of a view camera is how a picture is taken. View cameras are simple in design but have a high complexity level in using them. First of all, the photographer’s head is surrounded by a bag–much like the cameras of the late 1800’s. Because this blocks the photographers vision, the photographer cannot see their hands. On top of vision being restricted because of physics, the image that shows up on the view plane is upside-down and backwards. These challenges are what Watson described as “learning curves.”
“If you just approach it systematically and knock down those curves in small groups, or one at a time, it’s not so bad,” Watson said.
With the challenges of the functionality of the view camera come advantages, like size and detail. Using a view camera allows for a large print size without compromising detail. This is another aspect that Watson desired; he wanted control over the plane of focus so he could emphasize what he wanted to focus on. The size of the negatives was also a factor.
“I wanted the big negatives so I could make big prints,” he said. “I’ve always been a sucker for size.”
Despite size, the fine elements of print remain definite.
“It all comes down to the quality. Why use bigger film? Because you can take the same information, spread it over a bigger area and therefore you get more detail,” he said. Detail can be found everywhere in Watson’s photographs. His prints don’t include a single human being; nature is his choice for focus. Watson also chooses to do many photos in black and white. There is no sign of blandness between the many shades of gray. The choice for a colorless pallet allows him to draw the viewer into what nature is conveying. To obtain the prints he produces requires him to adventure into the depths of nature and look off the beaten trail. He has photographed Joshua Tree and Yosemite National Park along with areas in Japan, California, Arizona, Japan and his native state of North Carolina. The prints show the explicit detail of the the variance of light and the textured rocks and trees. “I’ve been trained to notice things. That’s one of the things they do to engineers, they teach you to see more than just the surface; they teach you to see what’s happening,” he said. “When I go out hiking, I see photographs all around me that people are not looking at, things that are off the trail. People have an amazing ability to walk about with blinders on, they see what they are interested in or what they are looking at and very little else.” The high quality of picture that Watson produces is partly due to the process of printing he uses. After processing the film he uses a drum scanner to preserve every pixel of detail. Watson said drum scanners are better designed for doing this than a flat-panel scanner.
For Watson, he said, it has been a successful career change from science and math into the subjective area of art. He creates exquisite prints of nature because of his ability to notice what is often overlooked and to be patient and wait for the right sunlight. He plans to continue photography and hopes to explore Glacier National Park soon.
Watson’s prints are on exhibit at Points of View Photo Gallery located at 20 Glenwood Ave.