Ted Orland

  It all seems so long ago now. When I first picked up a camera in the mid-1960's, photography galleries did not yet exist, photographs themselves were priced like pottery, and it was entirely possible to know everyone in the then-tiny photographic community. My own entry into that world took the easy path of a summer workshop: two weeks photographing in Yosemite Valley with Ansel Adams.

That workshop also made Ansel my first and only formal photography teacher - and not surprisingly, straight large-format B&W landscapes quickly became my definition of fine art photography. It took me years to realize that I don't actually lead a fine-grained life - certainly not one that stands still long enough to take a dozen meter readings and wait for everything to settle into Zone System perfection. More often than not, I think, life was whooshing right past me while I was trying to set up my tripod. I still love the images I made in those early years, but where Ansel's world was monumental and sharply defined, my world has become increasingly quirky - and decidedly fuzzy around the edges. Today I'm more often aware of the incongruities of an uncertain world that catch my eye en passant, as I drive down a crowded freeway or walk along a deserted beach.

My ability to capture that world took a great leap forward around 1990 when I discovered a little plastic camera called the Holga. The Holga comes complete with one aperture (f/8), one shutter speed (1/60th), and a single-element plastic lens that filters out excessive sharpness so that realism doesn't get mistaken for reality. Simply put, it sees the world the way I do. And so I hang the camera around my neck, carry it with me most everywhere, and then photograph whatever crosses my path. Easy.

But while the Holga holds a special place in my heart, I'm not a Luddite - I also use a digital camera, and all my images pass through the computer on their way to becoming pigment prints from my printer. The real bottom line - and my overall theory about artmaking - is that if you lead an interesting life, you're on track to make interesting art. How could it be otherwise?