What do you think of the digital revolution?

(After a long sigh) I can’t keep up with it. It is here, and I am pleased to say that a good number of my students are keen and good at it, and I depend on their skills to help me out. It is like any tool or aspect. Certainly, some of the things you can do with digital images are amazing and fantastic, like scale and tonal corrections, or alterations. A couple of my students are doing some altered work that is quite sophisticated and uncanny. I have seen other stuff that is just stupid.

What is your involvement with the San Francisco Photo Alliance?

I had been a board member of Friends of Photography for many years, and, when the group finally gave up the ghost, it left a very big crater in the art community in San Francisco. I gathered a few like-minded people, got together and started a non-profit, and called it Photo Alliance. We got some starter money from Paul Sack, who is a tremendous supporter of photography in the Bay Area.

We made arrangements to use the Art Institute’s lecture hall, which is a nice size for us. It can hold up to 250 people. We decided to have a book signing next door for the artist, and then we got smarter, and decided to have family-style dinner before the lecture. In our eight years of existence we still don’t have a permanent home or office.

The students at the school can attend lectures for free. For other students, we have a special discounted price. We do an introductory lecture where we have, often, an emerging artist, an artist who is not well-known, and that person does a fifteen-minute talk about his or her work. We try to coordinate the introductory lecture so that it is a good match with the main speaker. We offer workshops. One of our founding principles is to have more collaborative and shared spaces. We are dedicated to staying lithe and flexible.

We also partner with Arts Commission in San Francisco, and we have worked with them to create a number of exhibitions. We will have one show on night photography this fall. Each March we have a portfolio review. This allows emerging photographers to get their work in front of the eyes of a number of well-known photographers and curators. We have an affordable collector print program, which encourages people to put some beautiful work on their walls, and at the same time support the organization.

Finally, Aaron Siskind^[1] and Harry Callahan.^[2] These were you two principal early teachers. How did they help you?

I got to work with two dedicated artists who were also teachers. They were first and foremost innovative and tremendously hardworking artists. The main thing was knowing their love for photography and for art and the energy it demanded if you are going to make a lifetime activity of it. They gave me a lot of personal encouragement. I think they recognized that I had a real passion for photography, not only my own work, but also the history of photography and the work of others. I just love photographs.