One of the workshop participants had shown me a single 8 X 10 photograph of a power plant where he actually was the general manager of this power cooperative. It was quite magical to me.
From John Sexton
The first day at the power plant I found myself photographing some steam vents on the roof of the structure. And I remember consciously thinking that they were just like trees but they were metal.
When I teach and meet a class for the first time, you realize that there are people there that have exceptional abilities or have the potential to do exceptional things and you never know who those people are. My job is to provide the best information I can.
And friends of mine that had photography class in high school would develop the film and make prints and I'd take them back to the track and give 'em away or try and sell them. Much to my parents' dismay, I majored in photography in college.
Having photographed the landscape for a number of years and specifically working with trees and in the forest I found, without consciously thinking about it, that it was a great learning experience for me in terms of organizing elements.
I really don't have any secrets. I've never met a photographer whose work I respected that had a secret because the secret lies within each and every one of us.
I remembered seeing it and it was this metallic turbine and I thought it was beautiful. I had never been in a power plant before, but I felt, without being overly dramatic, compelled to make photographs of this for myself.
I support any procedure that allows photographers to express themselves, whether that involves color, black and white, platinum, palladium and digital technology.
I think the greatest photographers are the amateur photographers who do it because they love it. Arnold Newman is a good example; he is a consummate professional, but he's also an 'amateur' in the pure sense of the word.
I took a workshop from him a few months after that. That experience changed my whole approach to photography. At that workshop in Yosemite in 1973 I decided I wanted to try and see if I could pursue this for myself, and I'm still trying.
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