Meadowlark

Works by Ian Bates February 3rd – May 31st, 2024 Opening Reception: Saturday, February 3rd, 5-7:00 PM To make the pictures in Meadowlark, Ian Bates spent years driving the vast, sparsely-populated spaces of the American West, often sleeping in his car. This is a project borne of both passion and patience, and though Bates was […]

Self-Taught Teen Explores Identity Through Film Photography

arthur wechsler self portrait film photography
Arthur Wechsler discovered photography at an early age. His grandfather was a photographer in the Korean War and Arthur had one of his old cameras sitting in his room “forever.”
“One day, I think a year before he passed away, I asked for a camera, and he got me one for Christmas. I was 11 or 12 at the time,” Arthur said.

Non-Stop Action at Our Slow Food Workshop in Umbria

photography workshop italy umbria
Jeff Zaruba and I arrived in Umbria a few days before the workshop began to scout locations with our Italian assistant Lorenzo. Those first couple of days were busy, but they were nothing compared to the non-stop action once the workshop began.
We had 10 students in the group and one of the students brought along his wife. On our first day of shooting, we went to a bed and breakfast we’d scouted a year ago. The location is extremely picturesque and Eleanora was all ready for us: The kitchen was set up for us to shoot while she prepared lunch, and she’d planned a wonderful menu.

Jay Ruland on the Beauty of Growing Old

Big Red, Jay Ruland, Withering Roses, exploration of age and age issues, pictures of flowers, flower photography
After 25 years in the workforce, Jay Ruland decided to go back to school and, not surprisingly, found himself surrounded by 20-somethings. While he says he was welcomed by his junior contemporaries, he was struck by the way they perceive the world; that is, the things they found to be beautiful also tended to be as young as they were. As a 50-something, Jay says the aging process is beautiful in itself, and the desire to show that is the basis for his Withering Roses floral photography series, which will be featured in his new solo exhibition at The Image Flow As the Allure Fades opening on May 14.
“The younger students sort of had a bias toward things in society that are young and pretty, and we’re taught through the media that younger is better. But if you look closer in nature, things that are getting older are still beautiful and the process itself is a beautiful process,” says Jay.
He chose to work with roses because they are a societal symbol for beauty, something you’d give on a first date or use to decorate your house, but also because they can communicate ideas, from the number you give to the color, and transgress cultural barriers.

Don’t Miss Annie Leibovitz’s “Women” at the Presidio Through April 17

Ballerina Misty Copeland photographed by Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz, a San Francisco Art Institute alum, began her famed career as a photojournalist for Rolling Stone in the early 1970s. Over the past 40 years, she has created some of the most stunning and most controversial photographs of her day. Her new exhibition Women: New Portraits now on display at the Presidio’s Building 649 at Chrissy Field features portraits of some the world’s most influential women, from ballerina Misty Copeland to anthropologist Jane Goodall to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

5 Tips for Taking Amazing Photographs at Night

Tips for night photography from expert shooter Hendrik Paul
Fine art photographer Hendrik Paul is best known for his surreal black and white landscapes of the Marin Headlands, but he also likes to venture out at night to take ethereal images in both urban and rural settings.
Here our most accomplished night shooter shares his tips for night photography, from the best equipment to use to the best time to shoot, so you can start taking beautiful photos at night!

5 Tips on How to Photograph a Usual Place in an Unusual Way

Maui Haleakala Flow Photography Tips
Ever get up at the crack of dawn and haul out of the hotel/condo/AirBnb with a cup of coffee and camera and haul down to a beautiful beach or center of a quaint Eastern European city ready to take the perfect sunrise photography, only to be overcome with the feeling that it’s already been done? Here, travel photographer Jeff Zaruba offers five tips for turning the ordinary into extraordinary.

An Action-Packed Weekend of Landscapes & Nudes in Big Sur

© barbara hazen weekend photography workshop big sur The Image Flow
The Image Flow headed down to Big Sur for an all-inclusive weekend photography workshop shooting nude models and the rugged California coast, not to mention a tour of Ansel Adams’ private darkroom and a behind-the-scenes look at the Edward Weston estate. Stuart Schwartz offers a few words:
This is the first time we’ve held Big Sur Landscapes & Nudes, and you never know how a new workshop is going to go, so there’s always a bit of apprehension. But as soon as we got to the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA, on Thursday, for a presentation of work by instructors Michelle Magdalena and Ken Parker and a motivational talk with Artistic Director Brian Taylor, it was pretty obvious it would a special weekend.

Mary D’Agostino: Seeking Beauty in Nature’s Fleeting Moments

Grizzly with Salmon © Mary D'Agostino nature & landscape photographer
Emerging nature and landscape photographer Mary D’Agostino is as homegrown as much of her work. A busy executive by day, Mary used to spend her vacations painting wildlife, but in recent years, she has developed a passion for photography. She put herself through a “school of photography” taking workshops and classes at The Image Flow and started working one-on-one with Stuart. “I was doing projects and shooting a lot, and I would routinely bring my work in for critique from Stuart.”
Mary has also sought critiques from experts in the field of nature photography, which have been met with increasing success. “I’m fearless when it comes to finding people in the field of photography to evaluate my photographs,” she says.