Morgan, and a Taste of Summer Sunshine

Summer seems long ago. At least now we're past the solstice, and on are wending our slow way back to more sunlight. Speaking of which, here are a couple of summer senior portraits, of a young lady from Lake Oswego. Doesn't that sunlight on her shoulders make you warm all over? It makes me want to head to Mexico for a while....

View more Lake Oswego senior portrait photography on our website!

Sarah's Christmas Party

Every Saturday night for the last couple of years I've driven out to East Portland to Sarah Modrall's house. Within a short time, 30-50 street kids converge on her house, and we spend the next several hours eating a good meal, talking, studying the Bible, singing, hanging out. It's an amazing time, really.

This weekend we had our annual Christmas party. What a hoot! We played games, ate food, and had a gift exchange. A fun celebration of relationships built and hope restored at this special time of year.

The kids find it hilarious that I am able to take the group pictures, and be in them at the same time....

The RACC Grant...

Back in August I applied for a visual arts grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC). It was the first real grant I've applied for, requiring extensive preparation, a couple classes, lots of thought, calculations, and organization. You submit all of this, along with samples of your work, and then you wait. Three to four months. Wondering if you should be making plans for the following year, but not quite sure.

Well, I got home from rock climbing this afternoon, opened the mail, and...I got the grant.

I applied so I could pursue the documentary work on eating disorders (see posting below on anorexia and bulimia) which I began this past year. I have some goals set out in the grant, which need to be met by the end of 2007. Now I can (once the holidays pass...) jump in and get moving. Pretty exciting stuff. Can't wait to show you what I come up with.

Getting a grant is exciting and moving, not just to have the money to work with, but moreso to have the recognition from people you respect. It's more of a pat on the back that says, "What you're doing is valid and important. Keep moving."

A grant also seems to give validity to others that what you're doing is bonafide, genuine. I hope it might open some other doors as I move forward. Stay tuned.

Laura's Silvery Eyes

I love watching people, and faces are what make my artistic boat float. Last week I met Laura, who works at Print Arts Northwest (a wonderful gallery in Portland's Pearl District), and decided I ought to include her in my Women's Faces portrait series (which just became a series, because this is the second one shot in the same style). (See this post for another.) She's a novelist, and she's the same age as me. I haven't decided which of these 2 is more striking; leave me a comment, and tell me what you think:

Kenya and Israel

Goatherder, Nellore, India

In the spring of 2005, I had the opportunity to travel to southeast India to photograph medical teams working in coastal villages hit by the tsunami. I documented teams giving free medical clinics; helping rebuild (from the ground up) a destroyed, relocated village; dedicating new wells; and working in an orphanage in Nellore, India. I was with a group from Open Arms International. It was a hot, exhausting, and exhilarating two weeks.

I just received notice that I will be accompanying Open Arms again, this spring, to Kenya, Africa, and to Israel. They will be doing similar work in Kenya, as well as dedicating a site they have been preparing to build a medical clinic and orphanage. The trip will be in March.

Do Kenya and Israel seem like an odd combination? I think so, too, but I'm sure excited to go.  Being a travel and editorial photographer can be exhausting, but very rewarding.

Here are a few more images from India:

Awaiting medical aid, a woman watches as Jodhi writes her a prescription.

Anorexia and Bulimia

I've been working for almost 2 years now on a photographic project about anorexia and bulimia. I'll give the overview of the project another time. For the moment, though, I have some new images about which I'm excited, and wanted to post one or two to share. There's nothing like having something beautiful in your back pocket, with no one to show it to....



The above image is new. This young lady, in our interview, shared how she both wants to garner attention by being the skinniest, most flexible dancer in her studio, while at the same time hates to garner attention from people concerned about her weight. A true Catch-22.
If this is something you struggle with, and you live in Portland or the Pacific NorthWest, I would like to talk with you. Please contact me; I would like to know your story, and consider including you in this project.
Alternately, if you have a strong interest in this subject as a writer or publisher, I would also be interested in talking with you. While I will soon be in the process of showing the work to publishers, I am open to discussing the matter with all interested parties.
More work in this continuing series may be seen on my fine art website, under the title Skeleton in the Closet.

Beach Observations

A few more images from shooting on the beach in San Francisco. These contemplative observations take in the light and land.

There's a poem here, about love, forgotten, remembered.

Let me know if you hear it; I'd like to read what you write....

.

This sign was posted along the boardwalk at regular intervals. It reads:

"People swimming and wading have drowned here."

The light was so beautiful on the water, warm and soft and silky....

See more of my San Francisco photography at www.fritzphotographic.com.

San Francisco: The People That You Meet When You're Walking Down the Beach

Surfer from the Midwest

Lost in Thought

Waiting

Blonde


Pink

Diarama


See more of my photography from San Francisco, and around the world, at www.fritzphotographic.com.

The Birds

From the boardwalk at the Bay end of Golden Gate Park. Like notes on a sheet of music....

Night Portrait

Shannon's from San Francisco. I took her portrait after her boyfriend Ian played a gig at a restaurant, and we were waiting around afterward on the sidewalk. What a beautiful face. Love those freckles. All girls with freckles should be proud!

This was the genesis for my photo series Astra Velum.

The Golden Gate Bridge, Engagement Portraits, and a Nudist Beach

I received an email from a customer this week, whose wedding I will be photographing next summer at Youngberg Hill Vineyard, in Yamhill County, Oregon. She and her fiance just moved to the Bay Area, and she was asking in her email if I had any suggestions regarding who might be a good photographer to do their engagement portraits in San Francisco. I emailed her back and said, in short, I'm in San Francisco right now; let's do them while I'm here. And so we did.

At a friend's suggestion, we went to Baker Beach in the late afternoon, and the view was stunning.





We had heard that some part of Baker Beach is often used as a male nudist beach. We were walking in the direction we thought was the opposite of this area, to take portraits. It wasn't until we were climbing up on the rocks past a gentleman (who appeared to be working on some sort of rock/driftwood scultpure) that we noticed he was wearing only his shirt. Nothing else.

I couldn't resist; I took this engagement portrait discreetly, with some of the unclad company in the background. And no, it won't be included in their final set of images:



We love being a wedding photographers in Portland, San Francisco, and around the world!

Editorial and Advertising Photography

The editorial/advertising/photojournalism/documentary section of my photography website has needed an update for some time. I just completed it, keeping it simple, but including a lot of images not before seen on my site. You can visit the editorial photography page of FritzPhoto.

Photography at Oregon

"Fairy Smile" 2004
From the series Through the Shadow

I had the privilege of being invited to participate in an exhibit and auction this month at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, in Eugene, Oregon. I'm honored to be in the show with such esteemed photographers at Ruth Bernhard, Steve Anchell, Stu Levy, Michael Kenna, and many others.

You can read the press release here.

I have 2 pieces in the show, selected from two different series. (I'll list them here, because, unfortunately, the reproductions on their website catalog are hideous. They also forgot to list me in the list of exhibitors, although you'll find me in the alphabetical listings....)

See more of my fine art portrait photography work at www.fritzliedtke.com.

"Sonja" 2002
From the series Welcome to Wonderland

Sophie Loves Leaves

How's this for a Fall Faerie? Sophie is the daughter of long-time (perhaps I should say, old?) friends Ben and Jessica. We photographed them in Laurelhurst Park with the lovely fall colors. I lay on the ground, on her blankie, photographing her eating leaves. It was great.

Homage to Jack McLarty

While I was talking with and photographing Portland artist Jack McLarty, he showed me a series of woodcuts he had in his studio. This series of mostly black and white prints were portraits of artists he had known over the years, most from the Northwest. Here is one he created of Gordon Gilkey, with his wife behind him:





I decided to create my own woodcut portrait of Jack, with his wife Barbara in the background, in a similar manner. And here it is:

Homage to Jack McLarty

Fritz Liedtke

Visit the PNCA website to see their cover story on Jack, using my images.

Creating environmental portraits like this is one of my very favorite jobs.  So meaningful.

Jack McLarty, Artist

"Jack McLarty in the Hand of God"
One of my portraits of him, in front of a self-portrait.

Artist Jack McLarty is a native son of Portland. He is a well-known artist both locally and nationally (you can find him in all the art encycolpedias on the web, and in many museum collections), with a long list of credits to his name. His paintings and prints are often described as 'independent, personal, and urban.'

Jack is a thoughtful, articulate man, whose work spans decades and continents. His travels have taken him from New York to France, Mexico to Japan, and yet Portland is still home. He taught for many years at the Museum Art School (now Pacific NW College of Art), co-founded Print Arts Northwest with George Johansen, ran the Image Gallery with his wife, and more.

I had the privilege of spending some time with Jack and his energetic wife Barbara, talking about their work, and photographing them.

Jack McLarty's studio is the one bedroom in their one bedroom apartment. Barely 8 feet by 10 feet, lit by a small window, it is filled with art supplies, books, memorabelia, print series, and paintings in progress. He talked me through 10 or 12 acrylic paintings in progress, many of which I wouldn't mind having even in their current, unfinished state.

This is the second time I have had the privilege of talking with and photographing a respected, aging artist in his studio. Last year I visited with sculptor and printmaker Manuel Izquierdo, and the portrait of him and his studio that resulted were some of my favorite work of the year. I hope to do more of this work, documenting the lives and spaces of venerable artists. Perhaps it is the influence of the work of one of my favorite photographers, Arnold Newman; or just that I also am an artist, and love to document others in their native habitat: the studio. It's inspiring work.

Jack has kept notebooks in his pocket for decades. Barbara showed me some of them, each dated on the cover with a year. They are compendia of his thoughts, quotes, and sketches. Though painting in his tiny studio, Jack tells me he paints from observation. He pays attention to life, remembers and records it, and paints from it.

The artist's hands.

Jack has a collection of tin wind-up toys, dating back to his childrens' childhoods and perhaps earlier. Most of them, he tells me, are broken; his art students used to come over and play with them, winding them far too tightly, until the springs broke....

Visit the PNCA website to see their cover story on Jack, using my images.

Photographing portraits of Portland artists is one of my very favorite photo assignments.  And visit my fine art photography website to see more of my own artwork!