Douglas R. Winn Photography & Imaging
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ON PHOTOGRAPY
While studying architecture in college, one series of courses that really expanded my ability to visualize, compose and professionally present my visual work was "photography". The school of Architecture & Allied Arts at the University of Oregon where I attended did not offer courses in photography, but the School of Journalism did, so I immersed myself in a series of photography classes in that School, taking them as "electives". My professor was a well known photo journalism professor named Bernie Freemesser. His classes were unique—he led us through studies of the work of Ansel Adams, Ed Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, and all of the others. Though the emphasis was on photo journalism, he also emphasized photography as a "fine art", and worked successfully to get a permanent fine art photography exhibit space at the University of Oregon museum.
He instructed us in B+W darkroom techniques and formal presentation of our work. I took every photography class then offered at that school and used those skills often in my design work in architecture.
The love of serious photography never left me, though I was unable to actively pursue photography in a serious manner for three more decades because of the time it took to raise a family and keep up with the demands of a full career.
From: Portfolio 1967 by Doug Winn
But it only took a spark of inspiration to ignite into full production my inner love of photography again, and that spark came from a close colleague who I had worked with for several years and with whom I had become a close friend. He and I led the design and construction of several high technology wafer fabs for Intel Corporation. This endeavor ultimately required us to move our families to Israel to design and build a factory there. My friends name is John Goodman. Before he became a plant engineer for Intel he studied photography at Brooks Institute. In leasure moments we would discuss photography, though I didn’t even own a serious camera at that time, but dreamed of doing so.
With our two families, John and I have gone on wonderful trips together, and one of the first trips was a riverboat tour on the Nile River from Luxor to Aswan, Egypt. It was on that trip that I became serious again about photography. As the riverboat slowly plied south up the Nile I was able to have some time to simply sit on the deck and visualize the scenes that were passing before my eyes! And what scenes they were! I barrowed my son’s tiny Minolta “point and shoot” camera and began to “shoot” these scenes. I experienced great joy just visualizing the scenes, and then shooting them and anticipating the images that were to result from this wonderfully creative effort.
When we returned to Israel from this trip I had the film developed and was amazed with what I had done with a little fixed lens, fixed focus, point and shoot camera. It wasn’t the photos of the many monuments that I took that was the most intriguing, but the “photo journalistic” nature of the environmental culture along the Nile that I recorded.
Sugar Factory, Nile River Egypt
Specifically, it was a series of shots of a Sugar Factory in full production, spewing unabated smoke in such volumes that the entire sky was filled for miles around. This series of images ignited the desire in me that drove me back into photography again. I purchased a Pentax 645 medium format system and began again to find the joy and satisfaction that I had experienced 30 years before in that series of classes in the Journalism school.
Living in Israel provided a perfect “jump off” point for travel to anywhere in Europe or Africa. We took full advantage of this and traveled to Prague, Budapest, Greece and the Greek Islands, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Jordan, and the Sinai. Each location provided unbelievable photographic opportunities and I took full advantage of them. My new portfolio began to grow, and has continued unfettered ever since.
Winn at Belvoir. Photo by J. Goodman
I have now retired from active design and construction endeavors and focus primarily on developing fine art photography. This has turned into a serious professional effort. I now run my own studio gallery, and I produce this commercial web site. My hope is that each person in my audience will be touched in a positive may as they view the images that are a result of this creative effort.
From: Waterholes Portfolio by Doug Winn
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