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In this installment we get to learn a little of Gary Zerbst’s Photographic Journey through life
I got married when I was 21 and still a student, having already flunked out of several prestigious schools. In the year or so that I then spent in menial jobs before resuming my education, my wife suggested that I needed a hobby.
Being an outdoor active person, I decided that I would become the world’s greatest wildlife photographer. I bought a used Argus C3, a split image focusing rangefinder camera with a clip on independent light meter, and started taking bad pictures. I added a screw on telephoto supplementary lens and my pictures didn’t improve. Faced with the obvious, I assumed that my problem was that my camera was not a SLR. I got a Mamiya Sekor CWP, a SLR with a built in (not through the lens) light meter, and a few affordable (read cheap) lenses and continued to take mediocre pictures. After a few years and a few more colleges as a math/physics major I quit college. I took a job as an engineering technician with the Highway Department surveying for and laying out the route for Interstate 5 through the south end of Seattle, WA. Here was a job that was technical and mathematical and outdoors. I reveled in it and bought the engineering textbooks from the University of Washington Bookstore and took them to my “office” in the basement where I digested them one after another until I was a reasonably competent engineer. By this time I was a father of two sons and still interested in photography but by then I just wanted to become a better photographer of any kind. I joined a local camera club where the one really good photographer was into black and white photography. I tried to emulate him. I got all the equipment for a darkroom and started developing my film and printing 8×10 B&W.
Due entirely to my enthusiasm, I was elected as a President of the Camera club.
Looking back, I can see now that my results were in the mediocre to average range but my enthusiasm remained high. I sold the Mamiya and became a Canon advocate with a through the lens metering camera. I eventually ended up with two Canon bodies and several prime lenses ranging from 28 mm to 400 mm. the excellence of my output remained low but I so enjoyed my time in the darkroom that my enthusiasm remained high.Work took me from Seattle to Idaho Falls, Idaho and then to Berwick Pennsylvania. Each of the houses that I rented had to have a place that I could call my own for a darkroom. I continued to buy film in 100 meter rolls, spool it into my own cassetes and develop it and print it. Despite the volume of film I was burning through, I never quite got the hang of developing and printing it. My photos were best characterized as grainy and lacking in contrast.
When I returned home to Washington State, I brought my photography addiction with me. Along the way, I secured my Professional Engineering License. We bought a house and with room for a darkroom settled in for the long run. One year, at the county fair there was a photo exhibit and judging. There were 6 categories of B&W photography.. I picked 5 photos almost at random from among those that I had mounted and matted and entered one each in 5 of the 6 categories. By the end of the fair, I had won best of show, three 2nd places and one third place. It took the wind out of my sails, I looked at my photos and tried to reconcile my judgment of them against the judging results. I thought ,”Is that all there is?” Where’s the challenge?
I started to lose interest in photography.
In the mean time I had developed a keen interest in sailing and had purchased a 25 ft “cruising” sailboat with full sitting headroom and probably the world’s most uncomfortable cockpit . After two years, I felt a need (and an aching back) for a more ergonomically sized and designed sailboat, and bought a boat that we simply couldn’t afford. After 34 years we still have that same boat (and still cannot afford it ). (B.O.A.T, you know, stands for Bring Out Another Thousand.) Sailing took precedence over photography for the next 20 years or so. I raced and cruised actively and successfully for 25 years.
When we retired, we moved to Lopez Island, a small agricultural island of about 2300 souls (swelling to 4500 during the “silly season”) in the San Juan archipelago. We are connected to the mainland only by a ferry or by private plane or private boat. We are in an inland sea about 20 miles sail south of Vancouver BC Canada and 20 miles sail east of Victoria BC Canada. I think it’s a paradise.Now that we’re retired, I have just enough time off from a self imposed life sentence of trying to control vegetation overgrowth, for both sailing and photography. Since there is no organized sail racing for cruising boats within a convenient distance, I started using the boat primarily for cruising . Meanwhile, back at the ranch, with the advent of digital photography, I had gradually resumed my prior interest in photography. I bought a digital SLR with in-body image stabilization to compensate for the slight but developing tremor in my hands. I discovered that the internet has all kinds of free photography websites and tutorials mixed in among the advertisements and other ignorable fluff.
I found one website called Shark Tank that showed promise for challenging my photographic practices and abilities as I sought to improve as a photographer. (Too often my personal involvement with a photo prevents me from seeing the flaws in my work. )
I found that critiquing the photos of others is almost as valuable a learning tool as is having my own photos critiqued.I have acquired a suite of photo processing software and am gradually learning how to use it.
I have found other enthusiasts and recently started what promises to be an active Camera Club here “on island” (as opposed to “in America” or “ashore” ) I am patterning the meeting agenda very loosely around shark tank critiques although I’m having a hard time getting the critiques to say in detail how they think the photos could be improved. Except by revising the cropping (Critiquing requires thought and thought is hard work)
On a personal note It seems to me that my greatest personal weakness as a photographer is the rigidity with which I try to use the “rules” of composition and the resultant lack of creativity. My Engineering background has driven my thought patterns toward functionality at the expense of aesthetics and emotions. I have spent my working life stifling aesthetic creativity in order to achieve the most efficient functionality. I am now immersing myself in a photographic world in which aesthetics and emotions matter.
I’m learning but it’s slow, with so many paradigms to unlearn.
I have yet to discover “my” style. . I’m trying to become more deliberate in my photo taking. I think of myself as a photo generalist but I lean a little towards landscape photography and strongly away from portraiture. I have a unique ability to make my portrait subjects look really bad.My favorite Photographer would be Ansel Adams. He was the consummate technician and master of the tools of photography as well as an accomplished artist all rolled up into one package. His image of Moonrise over Hernandez New Mexico is my all time favorite photo
My formal training in photography is limited to one short two day seminar .
Just like my engineering, I’m largely self-taught by reading.I keep a lean portfolio of my favorite images on Flickr. After an image on Flickr has served it’s Shark Tank purpose and the topic is no longer active, I usually delete the image from Flickr.
Although I’d love to succumb to the lure of equipment lust, I also ascribe to the premise of “if it aint broken, don’t fix it”. My equipment is not blocking my way to outstanding photography. That would be me blocking my own way. I’ll keep shooting with what I have, but hopefully shooting in new ways.
I know that “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”. I’m not satisfied with what I ’ve always got, so I must do something different to get a different result and grow. -
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Allows Edits? YesGreat to know more about you, @garyzerbst
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Interesting read, @garyzerbst.
As I was reading it occurred to me that the internet with its megatons of knowledge (more than we can ever hope to absorb), enables someone like me with almost no photographic background (relatively speaking) to catch up with much more experienced hobbyists – or at least be short on their trails – if I’m prepared to read a lot and work at it. Sure, the dark room experience will never be part of my framework of reference, but our amazing modern PP tools – which are still making progress in terms of features and abilities – let me largely get away with it. But – it’s nice to have the ‘old school’ experienced guys around us to keep the standards up and coach us where needed.
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Gary, very entertaining!
Interesting Camera the Argus C33. Not quite sure it is the best for Wildlife…. 🙂
Still interested in seeing what you did shoot with that.Interesting to buy the film in 100 meter rolls.
When I was working at one of the largest TV-studios (in the days that all reportages, documentaries and drama for TV was still shot on film) I always used “short ends” for stills.
Short ends are pieces of a film roll that is left after a day of shooting and is too short to put in the camera again. Always between 15 and 45 ft. (so in a cinema camera maximum of 30 seconds of film). Since they were left overs, they were free.Can we see the prize winning pictures from the county fair?
I would love to.I am a sailor too. Usually smaller boats but occasionally I sail the seas. North Sea and Mediterranean . Fantastic!
Reading your story, it shows that there always were and always will be many opportunities for photography.
I totally agree with your vision to get out of your comfort zone and try something different.
In the end, that will give you the best results.Can you please, please add some of the pictures you describe.
Thanks for sharing, with this knowledge I will look differently to your pictures. -
Gary, what an interesting story. I, too, am largely self-taught, and I understand some of the issues that brings about: one falls into ruts, one has trouble seeing one’s own shortcomings. So I think you are doing the best possible thing getting involved with a photo club and with Shark Tank.
Like Erik, I wish you had illustrated this with a few of your best! -
Sorry there are no photos to accompany my voluminous text. My early photos were lost to mold and mildew over 30 years ago. (Storage in a damp basement) Erik wanted to see the photos from the fair but, of the photos that I entered in the county fair, in about 1981, only one remains, hanging above my desk. I’ll see if I can photograph it and send it along. Cannot do it now because my camera has been taken to our sailboat in preparation for a mid week cruise. Of course, I think my more recent pictures are among my best. There are a few that I haven’t deleted from Flickr. They are, IMHO, a bit above pedestrian but not up to being called excellent.
Thanks for the kind comments about my bio. -
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Erik,I’m back from my midweek sailing adventure. This is the one photo that is left over from the county fair experience that I spoke of.
I just photographed it in position hanging the wall in order to get a digital image to share. -
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