Will Gibson Bio
I am old enough to have had my first experiences with photography at a time when black and white imagery was still a dominant form. Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson and others were at the peak of their careers and Life and The Saturday Evening Post magazines were touchstones for the cultural life of the country. Once I started printing my own work in 1968, I was hooked. I have ever since been fascinated with the possibilities inherent in a medium that deals with time, light, shape and form. It allows me a way to see in new and different ways. It has always been a way for me to make sense of the world, and to focus on things and ideas of substance.
Starting my working life in medical research, I turned my hobby of photography into a vocation in 1979. Instead of paying a school to teach me, I opted to have clients pay me to learn the craft. After a year working for a local brochure company, I opened my own studio. Over the course of the next 20 years, I expanded my capabilities to include a full wet lab in B/W and color film and print processing, drum scanning and digital pre-press.
Services & skills
photo: © Viki Miller-Strand
In 1999 I closed the studio and moved to Columbus Ohio in support of my wife in her quest for a doctorate in Education. For three years I was able to show my work in the vibrant art fair circuit and photograph in the East from Alabama to to the Upper Peninsula, work which started my Eastern Sojourn portfolio. PhD in hand, we returned to California, my wife teaching at San Diego State and me teaching photography at Palomar College and UCSD Extension. Over the next 15 years I taught 16 separate titles including Portraiture, Commercial and Alternative Processes. In that time I have been a founding member of the PhotoArts Group, co-producer of six Best of Nature photo competitions and shows at the San Diego Natural History Museum, shown my work locally and been a speaker, juror, and panelist in various San Diego photo clubs.
Currently I am working on revisiting and cataloging my work over the years, working in wet plate collodion, infrared B/W and showing my images and working in Studio 3 in the ArtHatch building in at 317 E. Grand Ave, Escondido CA 92027.
For the academically inclined, I can send a CV on request.
Photographic Philosophy
I come from a school of thought that if an object of art needs a lengthy verbal explanation to make sense, then it has failed its job of eliciting a true cognitive or emotional response. I aim to reach the viewer in the space before words. As an impressionable college student in the 1960’s, I discovered the works of J. Krishnamurti, specifically in the thought that as soon as you name your perceptions, you limit those impressions to what you already know, to the way you’ve already learned to view the world. This blocks a true response to the now. That concept has lead me to trust my subconscious and keep my senses alert and open. Others may photograph to apply their will upon the world, I photograph to show the world as it is and as it might be through a lens in order to better understand the world and myself. And hopefully to share those understandings with others as they may see them.
317 E. Grand Ave. Studio 3, Escondido, CA 92027
You can leave feedback below....
Will Gibson Photography