Scott Atkinson: California Textures
Sometime early in my photo career, I decided to “stay home” and shoot only in California’s native habitats. Not that it’s a hardship: I live by the ocean and also travel widely, from coast to valley to mountains to deserts, in my dusty old Toyota truck. These landscapes are not Half Dome. They’re quiet. They have their seasons, their own “order,” their unique textures and colors. Parks and preserves are crucial, but so are these other vanishing worlds we drive by daily. Who will speak for buckeyes, manzanita, valley oak jungle, or pickleweed?
I was gifted my first 4x5 field camera in the late 1980s, and the 4x5 and 8x10—plus a Hasselblad for wind and rain — were my cameras of choice for 30 years. Those were, of course, film days, with dark cloth, spot meter, sheet film holders, and CC filters. I now shoot and print digitally, and the images shown here are all from these more recent days.
Regardless of the tools, I still don't find anything clichéd or dated about a single moment in time, or anything given or trite about color itself. And I don't see people, power lines, trash, dead trees, deconstruction, and collage to be inherently more meaningful than renderings of natural worlds on their own.
These places still exist…and my goal is to be there again and again and hope they’ll somehow start to speak to and through me. I’m looking for bedrock.
And I guess I’m telling my own story, too, as I walk among theirs. Focus moves in and out. The camera doesn’t aim itself—and, in a way, it also points inward.
These hills and trees and meadows and streams are all old friends now, and together they trace my humble map of California. Who needs a GPS?