The portfolios on this Web page are my gallery
and are here to give the viewer, through the pictures, a glimpse into
my world. I encourage people to view them, comment by e-mail if they
choose, and if desired, order prints. The nature portfolio is
specifically intended to give those interested in Birdland Ranch
Wildlife Conservation Area a look at the wild creatures that share our
lives and hopefully benefit by our stewardship. The animals shown here
were all photographed on the ranch, unless otherwise noted. The
pictures on this page (top & lower right) were shot in the late
nineteen-eighties and are here to illustrate some of the concepts
discussed below.
I am not strictly a nature photographer. However,
as a lay-naturalist and conservationist, the natural world is an
important subject for me. I shoot spontaneously and subject to the
limitations of my equipment and the medium. I prefer images in which
the subject is portrayed in the context of the surrounding environment.
Forms and shapes created by the distortions of the lens become welcome
visual elements in the composition.
I use the camera in a private and personal way as
an instrument of devotion, documenting my visual experiences and the
events and people in my life as it progresses.
I am not nor will I ever aspire to be a
“professional,” as market forces distort the creative
process. I do not wish to be compared to others. I am not a “good
competitor.” Professional goals often require creative compromise
and expose the artist to a world that judges merit on financial
prowess. Paul Gauguin must have believed this when he isolated himself
in Tahiti in the final years of his life, creating his greatest works.
I choose to take pictures for my own visual and perceptual edification.
Perhaps I will leave for others a record of the time in which I lived.
I shoot partly for those that will follow me and for what my pictures
might teach them about our drastically changing world.
Trained as an artist, I received a Bachelor of
Fine Arts (BFA) degree in 1975, beginning my career as a painter,
although photography came first. I have been shooting for about 40
years and never sold or showed a photograph until the World Wide Web
offered me a platform I could control.
One of the things young art students grapple with
is how to preserve material works of art as time progresses. Having
worked in the advertising field as a digital graphic artist, I came to
distrust the reliability of digital storage. Thus, for the time being,
I have decided to continue shooting negatives, allowing archival
preservation.
On a technical note: Since 1987, I have used the
same 35mm Canon T-90 manual focus camera with one addition body, and 3
L-Series lenses (50mm f1.2, 20-35mm f3.5, 80-200mm f4). I shoot almost
exclusively handheld and in natural light. I usually shoot color
negatives with Kodak ISO 200 film. I scan, retouch and color-correct my
negatives in Adobe Photoshop.
Tony Heath
Birdland Ranch – May, 2007
