About the Artist
Richard Fenker is a Texas artist, writer and inventor living in Fort Davis, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico. His strongest
artistic influences came from Picasso, Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams, with whom he was privileged to study in
1976. His traditional black and white landscape photography has been featured in many shows and published in a
variety of books and magazines, including his book on the Big Bend, Where Rainbows Wait for Rain. Although Richard
often uses photography as a starting point, his recent abstract color work on leaves, butterflies, stones, French
architecture and western landscapes all take the form of prints. At heart, Richard is as much an impressionist or abstract
realist as a traditional photographer.
Vision
The photographs are intended to represent some of grand scale and majestic beauty of the western landscape.
Although I have done photography in many places all over the world, my primary interest with the panoramic pictures is
the western United States. I used a wide view panorama camera because my own experience (and probably yours) of
seeing the landscape comes in a wide view format. Traditional images sizes capture only small parts of this experience.
Equipment
I work almost exclusively with my Fuji Panorama camera. It’s a relatively large camera that uses lenses designed to
cover an 8” x 10” negative --- although the film I use is approximately 2” x 7” in size. I normally work very quickly and
often without a light meter in natural settings (at least until I’ve taken the first photo or two) because the light changes so
rapidly in nature. I use both color negative film and color positive film depending on the range of light and time of day.
Paintings
People often say my work looks much like a painting rather than a photograph. This is not accidental. In the first place I
am drawn to scenes that have a painterly quality, especially where the light is concerned. Secondly, as I work with a
scene I am moving it in the direction of a painting with my management of the light and other elements. A beautiful
landscape painting is a complex fugue of light and shadow, shape and color, which moves the eye in predictable ways.
I’m normally thinking “painting” rather than “photograph” as I work with images. Also, I’ve never liked the surface of
traditional color photographic papers --- so, my work is printed on a watercolor or other similar paper, often with a
textured surface, that further enhances the painterly quality.
Manipulation
Although I’ve had traditional photographic darkrooms for 30 years I’ll never have another one. The darkroom tools that
are available in digital programs today take away much of the “pain” and environmental mess associated with chemical
printing --- and offer great creative control. My work with Photoshop parallels what I would normally do in the darkroom,
just with much greater precision. I do relatively little manipulation of my images but do “paint with light” in the scene to
create a sense of space and grandeur, to move the eye to certain shapes or colors or, as a general rule, to attempt to
share my experience in nature with the viewer. You may notice in the larger prints that the image does not deteriorate
into a fuzzy or blurred grain structure as is common in many traditional images. I’ve never liked the “grainy/blurred
character” as you stand close to larger photo images and will actually “blur” the image at times to keep this from
happening. The effect is similar to what I did for many years in the darkroom with a piece of crinkled cellophane in front
of the enlarger! The textured paper also adds some smoothing or subtle abstraction to the images.
Editions
I tend to print in small batches --- usually 2 or 3 prints --- unless I am actually doing a complete edition for a specific
print. The reference on the bottom of the print (1/3, May 2008) means that I made three identical prints, within a short
time, in May of 2008. Since I am using a digital printer you may wonder why I could not make another three similar
prints a month later, a year later or ten years later. The answer is that the world just doesn’t work like this. I often change
my mind about what I see in the print and will have changed the image before the next printing. Printers and inks
change regularly. Papers also change. So prints of a scene dated May of 2008 will most likely be different from prints
done in March of that year or prints done a year later. As a collector, this will only add value to your prints because even
if the edition is larger than three prints, the “1/3, May 2008” means you will most likely have one of a set of only three
identical prints.
Richard Fenker is a Texas artist, writer and inventor living in Fort Davis, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico. His strongest
artistic influences came from Picasso, Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams, with whom he was privileged to study in
1976. His traditional black and white landscape photography has been featured in many shows and published in a
variety of books and magazines, including his book on the Big Bend, Where Rainbows Wait for Rain. Although Richard
often uses photography as a starting point, his recent abstract color work on leaves, butterflies, stones, French
architecture and western landscapes all take the form of prints. At heart, Richard is as much an impressionist or abstract
realist as a traditional photographer.
Vision
The photographs are intended to represent some of grand scale and majestic beauty of the western landscape.
Although I have done photography in many places all over the world, my primary interest with the panoramic pictures is
the western United States. I used a wide view panorama camera because my own experience (and probably yours) of
seeing the landscape comes in a wide view format. Traditional images sizes capture only small parts of this experience.
Equipment
I work almost exclusively with my Fuji Panorama camera. It’s a relatively large camera that uses lenses designed to
cover an 8” x 10” negative --- although the film I use is approximately 2” x 7” in size. I normally work very quickly and
often without a light meter in natural settings (at least until I’ve taken the first photo or two) because the light changes so
rapidly in nature. I use both color negative film and color positive film depending on the range of light and time of day.
Paintings
People often say my work looks much like a painting rather than a photograph. This is not accidental. In the first place I
am drawn to scenes that have a painterly quality, especially where the light is concerned. Secondly, as I work with a
scene I am moving it in the direction of a painting with my management of the light and other elements. A beautiful
landscape painting is a complex fugue of light and shadow, shape and color, which moves the eye in predictable ways.
I’m normally thinking “painting” rather than “photograph” as I work with images. Also, I’ve never liked the surface of
traditional color photographic papers --- so, my work is printed on a watercolor or other similar paper, often with a
textured surface, that further enhances the painterly quality.
Manipulation
Although I’ve had traditional photographic darkrooms for 30 years I’ll never have another one. The darkroom tools that
are available in digital programs today take away much of the “pain” and environmental mess associated with chemical
printing --- and offer great creative control. My work with Photoshop parallels what I would normally do in the darkroom,
just with much greater precision. I do relatively little manipulation of my images but do “paint with light” in the scene to
create a sense of space and grandeur, to move the eye to certain shapes or colors or, as a general rule, to attempt to
share my experience in nature with the viewer. You may notice in the larger prints that the image does not deteriorate
into a fuzzy or blurred grain structure as is common in many traditional images. I’ve never liked the “grainy/blurred
character” as you stand close to larger photo images and will actually “blur” the image at times to keep this from
happening. The effect is similar to what I did for many years in the darkroom with a piece of crinkled cellophane in front
of the enlarger! The textured paper also adds some smoothing or subtle abstraction to the images.
Editions
I tend to print in small batches --- usually 2 or 3 prints --- unless I am actually doing a complete edition for a specific
print. The reference on the bottom of the print (1/3, May 2008) means that I made three identical prints, within a short
time, in May of 2008. Since I am using a digital printer you may wonder why I could not make another three similar
prints a month later, a year later or ten years later. The answer is that the world just doesn’t work like this. I often change
my mind about what I see in the print and will have changed the image before the next printing. Printers and inks
change regularly. Papers also change. So prints of a scene dated May of 2008 will most likely be different from prints
done in March of that year or prints done a year later. As a collector, this will only add value to your prints because even
if the edition is larger than three prints, the “1/3, May 2008” means you will most likely have one of a set of only three
identical prints.
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RICHARD FENKER
| Copyright 2008 Richard Fenker. All Rights Reserved. The use of images in any form requires the express written permission of Richard Fenker and/or Cimarron Publishing, Inc. Cimarronpublishing@yahoo.com/505.988.2218 |
| RRich Fenkerich |