PHotoGraPHer
MAhlOn CrAfT
auGuSt liGHt MaHlon craFt
Interview by Harryet Candee
Mahlon, your photographs are beautiful! i am wondering, what kind of camera do you use, and, do you enhance the photos at any time with a computer program? Mahlon Craft: currently i am photographing with a nikon 35mm digital body with a manual nikkor 35mm Perspective control lens meant for architectural work that’s mounted. each of my photographs is a merged file made from 13 separate, slightly overlapping exposures. Why i have adopted this arcane method would take a couple of paragraphs to explain. the short explanation is that it creates a flat, undistorted, high-resolution image encompassing a field normally only possible with an extreme wide angle lens. the limitation is that still wind conditions are an absolute requirement. there are qualities i like about working in this studied way that would be more
22 • 2015 nOVeMBer The ArTful Mind
familiar to photographers working in the very early days of photography. i do enhance my photographs with some of the image-editing and enhancement tools available in Photoshop. i also use third party add-on filters that work with the program. My work does not attempt to accurately reflect the colors of my subject matter. rather, it is to enhance them in a way that adds color and depth to create beauty and mystery. What has given you inspiration to shoot nature at its finest hour? Mahlon: your question is best answered by quoting from something my father wrote more than 50 years ago about his unconventional watercolors:
I am in love with nature; The movement of a cloud as it scurries across the blue; Rain, streaked grey against pale blue horizons; The red autumn leaf on the ground; The first green bud of the lilac; A mountain—solid, majestic; A wave, splashes suspended, holds sunlight for a moment;… The first fleck of snow; The mysterious peek of the moon as it slowly emerges from a cloud… With each of her moods enveloped in space, I attempt by the utmost economy of means to achieve that goal which is perfection. ~ Paul G. craft, circa 1950