Orange County Museum of Art

Cascade, Placerita Canyon copyright Douglas Stockdale

Over the weekend I was informed that the four photographs that I had framed for the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) were hung. Except these are on long term loan to the Director of Development for her office, which regretfully is not in the Museum gallery, but the administrative building next door. Close! She choose four pivital images from my landscape series;

Arizona Monsoon is captured using 35mm camera (28mm lens) with black & white film (Tri-X, developed in HC-110) in 1975 that provided me with the inspiration to purchase a medium format camera to further explore the natural landscape. It was an Aha! moment for me.

Gore Creek, Winter marked my transition from painting back into photography in 2000, although the composition is peaceful and mediative for me, it is probably more about what I feeling. From my recent painting experiences and returning to photography, I was seeing images more in terms of shapes, values, scale and textures that would eventually lead the way to trying to understand and express flow. Captured with a medium format camera, normal lens, on film.

Cascade, Placerita Canyon, in which I started to really try to understand what constituted a landscape image. I began to see in the image the possible metaphors and to further work on the concept of flow. Captured with a medium Format camera, normal 80mm lens, on film.

Cloud Burst the first digital (and panoramic) image that marked my transition to a consider and eventually implement a fully digital workflow. I still have my supply of film cameras, multiple 35mm and Medium format SLRs, but these sit idle for the most part.

While at the OCMA to drop off my framed images there were a variety of photographs in the current exhibit. I had received a book on Catherine Opie that had been published by OCMA and I can say I was not her biggest fan. But she had an image on display (don’t remember the name of the image) that took my by surprise with regard to a whimsical perspective of a house on stilts in LA. Also a huge print, which means that it was a contempary photograph. They also had an Edward Weston contact 8×10″ print on display of a not often seen or well known photograph, which was not that impressive. Also on display was a 16×20″ Dorthy Lange Migrant Mother print on loan from her husband. I thought I had read that she did not print any photographs of this image as a result of it being a public works project photograph from the 1930’s. Migrant Mother was a great print for me to study.

Best regards, Doug