I combine a strong background in landscape studies with one in photographic arts.  During my career I have earned degrees and worked in forestry, religious studies, and photography.  I am an artist and a teacher.

Abstracts comprise my most recent work.  Earlier, I focused almost exclusively on landscapes.  Interestingly, I see in retrospect that a tendency toward abstraction has existed in my art almost from the beginning.  In abstracts and in landscapes I respond to the interplay of light, form, line, texture, and color.  Each image is grounded in my feelings as I experience encounters with sunlight and shadow, water and rock, plants and sky.  I am drawn to details.  I like to fill the frame with them, highlighting the impact they have upon me.

Art is not something outside of us.  It is within us.  It’s an expression of how we move through the world.  Art can be found in photography, painting, sculpture, ceramics, cooking, in the style of one’s clothing, and more.  It is a way of seeing.  It is a way of feeling and of conveying those feelings.

Among the greatest influences on my art are Edward Weston, Arnold Newman, Georgia O’Keefe and Mark Rothko.  I love the graphic eloquence in their work.  In the art of Weston and Newman I greatly enjoy, in addition, their sensitivity to tonal nuances.  Similarly, but with attention to color, I deeply appreciate the creations of O’Keefe and Rothko.

Following a career as a university professor, I completed a photography program in 2010.  I continue to study with masters of photographic craft.  John Paul Caponigro, Alain Briot, and Pierre Dutertre have encouraged me to deepen my practice of working with light and color.  With their guidance, I have increasingly opened to a more personal and creative style of photography.  As a result, my vision and style has evolved.  And it continues to evolve.

Because size matters, I tend to photograph with cameras that permit smooth enlargements of the original image.  My main camera is a full frame digital Canon 1DS Mark III.  I also use medium format, and occasionally large format.   All excel in preserving deep textures.  All are superbly able to reveal subtle tonalities and hues.

My landscape-based images have been published by Edible Portland, Northwest Sportsman, and Hunting the Rez.  In addition, my art has been displayed in the Creole Gallery in Lansing, Michigan and by Northside Galleries, located in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  During the summer of 2012 a selected abstract of mine was displayed in the Dow Museum of Science and Art, located in Midland, Michigan.  I’m happy to announce that in 2013 my abstracts will be exhibited by Art Alley in Lansing, and by Gallery 55 in Ann Arbor, both in Michigan.

I bring nearly twenty years of teaching experience to the workshops I offer.  Participants travel to spectacular locations and are provided opportunities to advance their skills and artistry in both abstract and landscape photography.

Learn more by visiting www.joelgeffen.com.