Gelatin Silver Print

Ice and Weed, Jacomo, MO

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Recognized as one of the most distinguished photographers in the Midwest, Loftis also worked many years as a technical illustrator and design engineer for Westinghouse and Western Electric. His engineering expertise resulted in the creation of the innovative design and manufacture of special photography equipment. One of the founding board members of the Society of Contemporary Photography in Kanas City, Missouri, Loftis also taught in the photography departments at Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri; Longview Community College, Lees Summit, Missouri; and Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kansas. In 2002, The Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, Missouri exhibited over 300 photographs by Loftis in a fifty -year major retrospective of his work. His photographs can be found in such prominent collections as The National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; and the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri. Dispersement of the collection of the Society for Contemporary Photography

Versailles, femme et soldat, maison close, Mai 1921

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Atget began his photography career in 1898. In this early age of photography, it is doubtful that Atget received any formal training. Even so, many consider his intimate and expressive portrayal of his subjects to be the beginning of true photographic art. Today his works can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Over the past thirty years, the museum has held several retrospectives of his work. He liked photographing working people in the streets in the old parts of Paris. Atget kept meticulous records of his works on this subject. Amazingly, he was able to produce a prolific number of works without the aid of modern equipment. Working with only a wooden tripod, a few plate holders, an 18 X 24 cm bellows camera and rectilinear lenses, Atget managed to produce more than 10,000 photographs of the historic district of Paris. The artist, Man Ray, was Atget?s neighbor, and was responsible for publishing a few of Atget?s photographs in the magazine La Revolution Surrealiste. This allowed the Surrealists to see and appreciate his work. Their admiration probably saved his works from total obscurity. A student of Man Ray?s, Berenice Abbott, also admired Atget?s photographs and became his assistant. She acquired Atget?s photographs upon his death in 1927, and is responsible for preserving them. She is the subject of this photograph by Atget.

Cathedral Spires and Rocks, Late Afternoon, Yosemite National Park, CA

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Considered the most important photographer of his time, Adams once had plans to become a concert pianist. However, he changed his mind after he viewed some negatives of the photographer Paul Strand. Adams was not only a musician but also a teacher, scientist, advocate, writer and conservationist. His prolific body of work spans a career in commercial illustration, architectural studies, portraiture, and his extensive studies of the environment, which have brought him worldwide recognition. Adams was instrumental in the formation of the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the first college of photography at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He also helped found the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. When he developed the Zone System for controlling the tonal range of a negative, amateur and professional photographers alike were finally able to have a significant measure of control over the traits of the black and white film. This celebrated American photographer captured nature?s most intimate details in his small and grand studies alike of Yosemite National Park, the Big Sur Coast, the Sierra Nevada, the American Southwest and America?s National Parks. His dramatic black and white photographs of his view of America?s wilderness remain extremely popular today.