Dan Baumbach talks about one of his favourite images
Dan Baumbach
I was born in Brooklyn, NY, USA. As a teenager I became enamored with street photography. When I graduated from college I started working in commercial photography until other events pulled me in a different direction. About 20 years ago I got back into photography and now do macros and intimate landscapes.
About 15 years ago I happened to pass by a photography gallery in Oakhurst California and decided to drop in. Oakhurst is about 1/2 hour from the Mariposa gate of Yosemite National Park and there were many very large photographs of the park on display. I know that these stunning images were taking with large format cameras because of the incredible quality of the large prints.
I remember one large 40x50 vertical image of a tree that was nearly bare. It was almost black and white except for some red leaves on the tree. It brought me to my knees and I knew I had to start shooting 4x5 or give up photography all together. The photograph was by Charles Cramer.
Charles Cramer was a student of Ansel Adams and has probably been taking photographs as long as or longer than many of Ansel’s better known students. Maybe because he doesn’t do any writing and only recently has been teaching printing workshops does he not have the wider acclaim that he should have.