Saturday, March 13th, 2010

8:30 am - 9:15 am

Photographing the Non-Descript: What to do When You’re Burned Out on the Grand Vistas

Shooting the grand vistas and intimate details of the American west is a passion that burns in many of us. Certainly anyone attracted to Shooting the West is predisposed toward that passion. At the end of each day’s photographing, we retreat to the small towns and seek motels, grocery stores, and restaurants that recharge us for the next day’s work.

These small towns, with their laundromats, streets, and cafes, are the subject of this presentation. Café place settings in Big Pine, California or Beatty, Nevada; a shopping cart in a parking lot in Hailey, Idaho; the house wares isle of Raines Market in Eureka, Nevada; a back alley in Gallup, New Mexico; and motels throughout the inter-mountain west: all of these are the source of unlimited fascination to photographer Mark Citret, who has been traveling and photographing the west for more than forty years.

Rather than turn off the search for photographs when settling into a town for the night, Citret’s search has just begun. The choice of a motel is made not on price or wi-fi, but rather on the likelihood the chosen establishment will provide interesting architecture. (Fortunately, the funkiest architecture is often accompanied by low-end prices). The streets and shop windows, cafes and storefronts—all of these are grist for the photographic mill. Between the towns, the rest areas, power lines, billboards, and guardrails provide equally fascinating photographic potential.

Mark Citret is an experienced photographer, printer, and teacher. He's a successful architectural and fine art photographer. He taught with Ansel Adams in the early seventies, and hundreds of workshops since. Mark lives in Daly City, CA.

Mark also does our Portfolio Reviews.

Return to the main Symposium Schedule.