Annual Newsletters

Our newsletter.

Sept, 1991

Greetings from Pennsylvania! (Yes, we actually do spend some time at home.)

For more than a decade, I have been sending occasional update newsletters to those who have taken an interest in my work. The original intention of these letters was to provide information to pre-subscribers regarding the progress that was being made on the production of my books, LANDSCAPES 1975-1979. Then I began to expand these letters to include more general information regarding my whereabouts and photographic activity. Over the years, I have enjoyed keeping in touch through these newsletters, and I have found that those receiving them have appreciated my staying in contact in this way.

It has been a very full year and a half and I'll fill you in briefly. In my last newsletter, I wrote that Paula Chamlee and I would be married at some point during our six-month trip last year—"in all likelihood, in April in Arizona". The likelihood became reality, and as many of you already know, we did get married—in April, in Arizona. We got married in Arizona because I wanted to take Paula to the San Rafael Valley for our honeymoon. The San Rafael Valley, a live oak and grassland plateau ringed with mountains is in southern Arizona right on the Mexican border, and is one of the most beautiful places that I know. There are few signs of contemporary civilization there—no stores of any kind, no overhead wires, no paved roads. It looks and feels as it must have been one hundred years ago. Our luxury hotel accomodations were, as you might expect, our 1961 International pickup/fire truck/camper. It was glorious.

Our photographic travels in 1990 took us around the perimeter of the country—from southern Arizona to the West Coast, up the Coast to Oregon and Washington, into the Canadian Rockies, and back via northern Montana and North Dakota. We both made many new negatives—most of mine with the 8x20 camera. Paula's were all made with the 8x10, though some are lovely, intimate 4x5's and 5x7's (made by using reducing backs on the big camera). Paula was able to print a portion of this new work last Fall and Winter, and some of you have seen it during the several short trips we made in Winter and Spring. My work has just been printed and will be available during our Fall trip.

While last year's trip was around the perimeter of the country, this year's will be in the interior. We plan to photograph in the Southwest, and time permitting, in Nebraska, Wyoming, and California. "Nebraska?", I hear you asking. Many years ago, when I hitchhiked across the country in 1962, I saw part of the Sand Hills region of western Nebraska—big bare rolling hills. I remember them as being very beautiful and have always wanted to return with my camera.

There will be an exhibition of my landscape work this Fall, September 13 to October 30, in Sante Fe. Rixon Reed of Photo-Eye books—the finest photographic bookseller I know of—has moved his operation from Austin, Texas to Sante Fe. Heretofore, he has only sold books through mail-order, but now he has opened a retail space as well. Mine will be the inaugural exhibition in the gallery of his new bookstore.

There is another exhibition I am very happy to announce. I will be honored with a twenty-fifth year retrospective at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. The exhibition will be opening on June 5, 1992 (an opening to which you will be receiving an invitation), and will travel for several years to various museums around the country. There will be a new book marking this event and serving as an exhibition catalogue.

Those of you who have visited me in Ottsville will find it hard to believe that at long last, after fourteen years, the house/studio I designed has been completed. We are located in the woods by a stream in Bucks County, and are not far from Philadelphia or New York. Please come visit us if you are ever in this area. You are always welcome, as it gives me great pleasure to reciprocate the generous hospitality extended to me during my many years of travel.

Paula joins me in sending all warmest and best wishes and regards,



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